University  of  California  •  Berkeley 


I 

VINDICATION 


^-^ 


OF    THE 


CHARACTER  AND  PUBXXC  SSRVZCES 


IN    REPLY    TO    THE 

RICHMOND  ADDRESS,  SIGNED  BY  CHAPMAN  JOHNSON. 
AND  TO  OTHER  EliECTIONEERING  CALUMNIES. 


ORIGINALLY  PUBLISHED  IN  THE  NASHVILLE  REPUBLICAN, 

AND   ATTRIBUTKD   TO 

MAJOR   HENRY   LEE, 

OF   VIRGINIA. 


BOSTON  : 

True  and  Greene,  Prinleri 1828. 


TO  THE  PEOPLE. 


The  following  is  a  most  ably  written  and  conclusive  argument.  It  has 
not  had,  in  that  respect,  its  superior  during  the  present  canvass. 

We  solicit  for  it  the  candid  perusal  of  all  men,  who  are  willing  to  know 
the  truth,  and  knowing  it,  to  vindicate  it  against  error  or  designed  mis- 
representation. 

No  man  has  rendered  more  important  services  to  his  country,  than 
Andrew  Jackson.  They  have  shed  upon  that  country  and  upon  his  own 
name,  imperishable  glory.  For  these  services,  his  country  is  grateful ;  and 
for  them  and  his  merits,  for  his  republican  character  and  attachments,  and 
for  his  determination  to  bring  into  the  councils  of  the  nation  the  old 
Democracy  instead  of  the  Federalism  and  Aristocracy  which  now  govern 
us,  his  country  will  place  the  highest  of  her  gifts  within  his  hands.  But 
these  great  services  and  deeds  of  devotion  to  the  general  welfare,  ami  the 
perilous  defence  of  his  native  soil,  are  the  sources  of  envy  in  the  minds  of 
malignant  partizans  and  bad-hearted  men.  They  hate  what  they  cannot 
imitate  ;  and  in  nearly  all  cases,  they  condemn  now  what  they  condemned 
during  a  war  which  they  opposed,  and  the  defenders  and  supporters  of 
which  they  then  vilified.  Such  men  have  filled  the  country  with  gross 
misrepresentations  of  the  character  and  conduct  of  Gen.  Jackson.  Every 
act  of  his  life  is  gainsayed  or  perverted.  No  man,  elevated  and  noble  as 
has  been  his  devotedness  under  great  emergencies  and  in  the  most  tryingr 
times,  has  been  so  much  traduced.  No  man  has  been  more  foully  slander- 
ed. The  inmost  recesses  of  his  family,  the  honor  of  his  wife,  his  domes- 
tic peace, — all  have  been  invaded,  to  serve  the  purposes  and  prop  up  the 
hopes  of  a  falling  party — to  sustain  an  administration,  which  coming  into 
power  without  the  consent  of  the  people,  seeks  by  such  means  to  deceive 
that  people  into  its  support.  Like  Tompkins,  he  has  been  hunted  down 
by  his  enemies  and  the  enemies  of  his  country.  Not  content  with  these 
assaults  and  calumnies  upon  the  private  character  and  domestic  life  of  a  ven- 
erable citizen,  they  attempt  even  to  scandalize  the  coimtiy,  and  in  the  very 
language  and  manner  of  the  pensioned  writers  of  the  British  press,  de 
predate  the  honors  and  underrate  the  victories  of  the  nation.  These 
calumnies  have  called  out  the  following  vindication.      It  is  worthy  of  the 


4 

author,  of  the  subject,  and  of  the  country.     Let  every  lover  of  his  coun- 
try read  it. — Albany  Argus. 

[From  the  Nashville  Republican.] 

To  the  Editors  of  the  Richmond  Enquirer. 

Gentlemen  : — The  address  of  the  Adams  men  in  Richmond,  published 
in  your  paper  of  the  26th  November,  is  not  more  remarkable  for  the  re- 
spectable names  attached  to  it,  than  for  its  prodigious  errors,  both  of  fact 
and  inference.  Such  a  conflict  between  persuasive  authority  and  repul- 
sive misrepresentations,  is  rarely  seen,  and  is  difficult  to  account  for,  unless 
we  suppose  the  address  was  fabricated  by  the  editor  of  the  Whig-,  and 
signed  under  the  influence  of  some  unhappy  hallucination.  Mr.  Chapman 
Johnson  appears  to  have  given  in  his  adhesion  with  scru|)les  and  reserva- 
tions, inconsistent  with  that  act  of  fraternity,  and  incompatible  with  the 
sentiments  of  the  party  he  joins.  But  his  standing  as  a  local  politician 
being  high,  and  his  name  not  unknown  as  an  attorney,  the  signers,  devo- 
ted to  their  cause,  and  careless  of  their  principles,  receive  him  with  open 
arms.  They  have  peifect  confidence  in  the  probity  and  honor  of  Messrs. 
Adams  and  Clay — he  has  none.  They  apprehend  no  attack  on  public  lib- 
erty, or  immediate  danger  to  our  institutions,  from  the  election  of  General 
Jackson — he  is  solemnly  convinced  (poor  man  !)  that  "  General  Jackson  is  al- 
together unfit  and  eminently  dangerous."  They  consider  the  opposition 
factious  and  unprincipled-— /te  does  not.  These' discordances  are  hard  to 
reconcile — unless  we  reflect  on  the  improbability  of  finding  any  varieties, 
of  opinion  sufficient  to  place  the  brother-in-law  of  the  Attorney-General, 
the  Attorney  of  the  United  States,  ana  the  would-be-successor  of  Chief 
Justice  Marshall,  in  fair  opposition  to  the  Court.  One  of  the  first  positions 
taken  in  the  address,  is,  that  the  election  of  General  Jackson  is  to  be  de- 
precated, "  as  ominous  of  the  decay  of  that  spirit  by  which  alone  our  in- 
stitutions can  be  upheld  and  perpetuated  ;"  and  I  perceive,  ai  a  trashy 
meeting  of  Mr.  Southard's  King  George's,  this  spurious  sentiment  is 
adopted,  and  traced  to  a  jealousy  of  military  fame,  discoverable  in  the 
constitution  of  the  United  States — an  instrument  which  was  framed  under 
the  eye  and  auspices  of  General  Washington,  and  was  by  him  recommend- 
ed to  the  American  people,  who  made  him  their  first  President,  when  his 
sword  was  scarce  cold  in  his  scabbard,  and  when  the  sounds  of  war  were 
just  hushed  in  the  land  !  It  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  another  repetition 
of  Mr.  Clay's  charge  of  Military  Chieftainship — an  avowal  that  General 
Ji<-ckson's  services  in  repelling  the  invaders  of  his  country,  constitute  a 
just  ground  for  his  exclusion  from  civil  office.  The  Legislature  of  this 
state,  who  know  the  General  at  least  as  well  as  the  readers  of  the  Whig, 
did  not  think  so,  when  they  made  him  Senator  of  the  United  States  ;  nor 
did  Mr.  iVJunroe,  when  he  appointed  him  Minister  to  Mexico.  The  laws  of 
society  require  of  every  man  the  exertion  of  his  abilities  and  the  hazard 
of  his  life,  in  defence  of  the  community  of  which  he  is  a  member.  The 
laws  of  this  country  place  arms  in  the  hands  of  the  citizen,  and  devote  his 
life  to  this  most  sacred  duty.  If  he  shrinks  from  the  glorious  task,  he  is 
consigned  to  ignominy  :  if  he  performs  it  with  superior  skill  and  courage, 
he  forfeits  for  ever,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Richmond  meeting,  public  confi- 
dence and  civil  honors.  In  their  political  ethics,  the  best  and  the  worst 
conduct  are  equally  culpable  ;  and  the  only  military  services  which  entitle 
a  citizen  to  political  promotion,  are  such  as  some  of  themselves  perform- 
ed— viz.  wearing  uniform,  taking  pay,  and  doing  nothing.  So,  because 
Governor  Barbour  tied  himself  to  a  broad -sword,  and  rode  behind  pistols 
two  or  three  times  to  Norfolk,  and  two  or  three  times  back,  sounding  louder 


than  an  empty  barrel  all  the  while,  he  was  made  Senator  of  the  United 
States,  in  postponement  of  Mr.  Wirt,  a  man  of  acknowledged  ability.  It 
is  very  true,  that  neither  Mr.  Adams  nor  Mr.  Clay  is  obnoxious  to  this 
ostracism  of  the  Richmond  meeting.  While  GeneralJackson  was  braving 
the  ambushed  shaft  of  the  Indian,  and  foiling  the  discipline  shock  of  Brit- 
ish columns  ;  was  performing  toilsome  marches  ;  was  enduring  thirst  and 
hunger,  relieved  only  by  the  fruit  of  the  oak  and  the  wave  of  the  torrent; 
was  periling  his  life  and  pledging  his  fortune,  to  save  the  lives  and  fortunes 
of  his  countrymen,  these  diplomatic  gentlemen  "  were  brewing  mysteries  of 
ruin"  against  each  other,  in  sumptuous  chambers  at  Ghent — were  prepar- 
ing that  hostile  rivalship,  which,  in  due  dramatic  succession,  rose  into  the 
production  of  separate  interests,  and  sunk  into  the  soft  catastrophe  of  the 
coalition.  Mr.  Adams  carefully  duplicating  his  charges  against  our 
"  weak  and  penurious  government,"  and  Mr.  Clay  gratifying  his  love  of 
pleasure  by  excursions  to  Paris  !  Such  are  the  services,  and  such  the  am- 
bition, which,  according  to  Messrs.  Call.  Cabell,  and  Stanard,  it  is  the 
interest  of  the  American  people  to  cherish  and  reward,  in  preference  to 
the  noble  patriotism  and  incorruptible  virtue  of  the  laurelled  farmer  of 
Tennessee  !  Absurdity  and  mjustice  like  this,  gentlemen,  can  never  find 
favour  in  the  renowned  commonwealth  which  gave  birth  to  Washington, 
and  was  the  theatre  of  his  greatest  military  exploit. 

The  state  of  public  intelligence  is  so  high  in  Virginia,  that  politicians 
who  attempt  to  effect  a  delusion,  prefer  hazarding  a  downright  mis-state- 
ment to  a  train  of  sophistical  reasoning — counting  more  on  want  of  suspi- 
cion, than  want  of  judgment  in  the  people.  With  this  view,  and  with  a 
claim  to  this  desperate  excuse,  the  Richmond  meeting  charge  General 
Jackson  with  "  an  unreasonable  desire  to  fill  the  office  of  President."  I 
should  like  to  know  what  circumstances  in  the  conduct  of  General  Jackson, 
indicate  even  colourably,  the  "  unreasonable  desire  "  here  spoken  of. 
How  are  the  Richmond  meeting  to  palliate  such  defamation  7  Will  they 
refer  to  his  letter  to  Carter  Beverly,  which  was  expressly  intended  to  pre- 
vent misrepresentations,  and  was  published  under  circumstances  of  indeli- 
cacy by  Mr.  Clay  himself;  or  will  they  rely  on  his  colloquial  answer  to 
the  intrusive  question  of  that  person,  which  haviug  been  shown  to  be  true, 
by  the  testimony  of  Messrs.  Trimiile,  Buchanan,  Isacks  and  Eaton,  is  cer- 
tainly blameless.  Was  General  Jackson  bound  in  violation  of  his  princi- 
ples, and  his  nature  to  conceal  by  evasion  or  falsehood,  any  facts  connectec 
with  the  last  election,  out  of  tenderness  to  the  reputation  of  Messrs.  Ad- 
ams and  Clay,  who  had  been  for  months  paying  the  public  money  to  Binns, 
Hammond  and  Gales,  for  slandering  himself  and  his  wife  ?  Or  was  he  to 
commit  the  incivility  of  refusing  an  answer  to  Mr.  Owen's  letter  of  inquiry 
upon  points  of  his  public  conduct,  against  an  official  misrepresentation  of 
which,  from  the  war-office,  that  gentleman  was  contending  at  the  risk  of 
his  political  fortune  ?  Would  it  have  been  criminal  or  censurable  in  Mr. 
Jefferson,  to  reply  to  a  letter  asking  for  information  respecting  any  topic 
of  his  history,  when  his  claims  were  opposed  to  the  elder  Adams,  and  his 
person  and  his  fame  vilified  by  the  younger  ?  No  man,  enjoying  in  so  large 
a  degree,  as  General  Jackson,  the  admiration  and  gratitude  of  the  public,ev- 
er  endeavoured  so  studiously  to  elude  its  gaze.  Buried  in  our  western  woodg 
he  remains,  and  though  unrestrained  by  the  dignityor  duty  of  office,  resists 
the  importunity  of  his  eminent  friends  in  all  quarters  of  the  Union,  and 
even  his  t)wn  liberal  curiosity  ;  and  has  forborne  for  many  years,  the  usual 
recreation  of  tours  for  health  or  pleasure.  While  Mr.  Adams  and  Mr. 
Clay,  in  the  enjoyment  of  salaries,  and  under  the  responsibility  of  office, 
can  find  time  for  frequent  and  distant  excursions — to  a  festival  in  this  state — 
a  parade  in  that — an  election  in  Kentucky — a  review  in  Massachusetts — 


and  an  ebony  and  topaz  entertainment  in  Baltimore.  The  discernment  of 
the  Richmond  meeting-  is  so  keen,  that  they  can  discover  egregious  ambi- 
tion and  a  lust  for  office,  in  the  noiseless  retirement  and  rural  pursuits  of 
General  Jackson  ;  while  in  the  shameless  and  unexampled  electioneering 
of  the  cabinet,  they  see  nothing  but  Political  chastity,  and  concious  recti- 
tude. Is  this  the  exercise  of  "that  benevolence  and  Christian  charity" 
which  they  pleat  in  favour  of  the  coalition  ?  Is  it  not  rather  an  eruption 
of  that  abominable  spirit,  which,  to  use  their  own  words,  "  ascribes  an  ac- 
tion to  the  worst  and  most  dishonourable  motive  that  could  produce  it  ?" 
However  delightful  it  may  be  to  them,  to  offer  this  sacrifice  of  truth  and  jus- 
tice to  the  gods  of  their  idolatry,  they  are  too  wise  not  to  calculate  on  pro- 
voking by  it,  general  ridicule,  if  not  public  contempt.  On  this  subject, 
they  have  another  assertion  which  has  about  as  much  reality  for  its  foun- 
dation, as  Banquo's  ghost,  or  Redheffer's  perpetual  motion.  They  declare 
that  they  have  "  seen  with  inevitable  regret.  General  Jackson  descend  from 
his  high  dignity,  to  mingle  in  person  in  the  contest  waged  for  his  own 
election."  The  sincerity  of  their  regret  may  be  best  estimated,  by  reflect- 
ing on  the  torture  to  which  their  invention  must  have  been  subjected,  for  the 
incident  from  which  it  flows — the  pain  of  which  operation,  might  have  been 
spared  them,  had  the  delicacy  of  General  Jackson  not  been  illustrated  by 
contrast,  with  the  meddlesome  eflTrontery  and  corrupting  circulation  of  the 
executive  officers ;  had  he  met  Mr.  Adams  at  Baltimore,  Mr.  Clay  in  Pitts- 
burgh, Mr.  Southard  in  Virginia,  Mr.  Barbour  at  Annapolis — or  had  it 
not  required  the  invitation  of  a  sovereign  state  to  draw  him  from  his  home, 
to  participate  in  the  celebration  of  a  great  event  in  his  own  and  his  coun- 
try's story. 

But  the  temper  of  the  Richmond  meeting,  their  attention  to  the  progress 
of  events,  the  phases  of  character,  and  all  the  circumstances  belonging  to 
the  problem  involved  in  the  comparison  of  General  Jackson  with  Mr.  Adams, 
and  in  the  designation  of  the  latter  for  President,  is  best  explained  by  their 
own  declaration — viz  :  that  they  "  now  think  of  General  Jackson  as  they 
always  did." 

Tt  is  very  well  known  that  about  the  time  Algernon  Sidney'  drew  his 
impatient  pen  et  in  celeres  iambos  misit  furentem  against  the  Hero  of  New- 
Orleans,  the  latter  was  regarded  by  many  persons  in  Virginia  with  much 
such  sentiments  as  during  the  heat  of  the  revolution  prevailed  in  England 
towards  General  Washington.  They  believed  the  execution  of  Arbuthnot 
and  Ambrister  to  be,  in  the  language  of  Mr.  Clay,  (who  was  then  attack- 
ing Mr.  Munroe,  through  the  reputation  of  General  Jackson,  for  appoint- 
ing Mr.  Adams  Secretary  of  State  in  preference  to  himself,)  murder.* 

That  the  pursuit  of  the  Seminole  Indians  to  their  places  of  refuge  and 
recruit  in  Florida,  was  lawless  and  unauthorized — and  that  General  Jack- 
son's character  was  ferocious — his  propensities  vicious — habits  profligate, 
and  conduct  outrageous.  Whereas,  now  that  the  excitement  of  that  sea- 
son has  subsided,  and  that  time  has  cast  its  impartial  light  upon  the  matter, 
it  is  universally  known  that  the  execution  of  Arbuthnot  and  Ambrister 
was  in  strict  conformity  with  the  laws  of  nations  and  usages  of  v;ar  ;  was 
perfectly  justifiable  upon  the  principles  of  a  prudent  retaliation  ;  and  was 
a  measure  of  justice  far  less  opposed  to  mercy  than  the  execution  of  the 
unfortunate  Andre.  That  the  invasion  of  Florida  was  no  violation  of  the 
neutrality  of  Spain — it  being  necessary  that  neutrality  should  exist  before 
it  can  be  violated,  and  it  being  both  notorious  and  attested,  that  the  sove- 
reignty of  that  province  was,  like  the  embraces  of  a  harlot,  "  open  to  all 
comers,"  and  particularly  prostituted  to  our  enemy.     That  this  prudent 

*  Mr.  Clay  uttered  this  outrageous  charge  in  debate,  but  in  the  report  of  his  speech  sup- 
pressed it. 


i 


and  effective  measure  corresponded  with  the  orders  and  policy  of  the 
government,  and  like  the  execution  of  Arbuthnot  and  Ambrister,  gave 
serious  offence  to  no  statesmen  on  earth  but  our  own  designing  politicians. 
It  is  also  known  that  by  the  quiet  force  of  virtue  General  Jackson  has 
lived  down  the  calumnies  of  his  private  character,  and  that  a  jury  of  his 
vicinage,  unbought  and  unsolicited — as  respectable  for  numbers, for  knowl- 
edge, for  talents,  and  for  worth,  as  the  Adams  men  of  Richmond,  have 
furnished  undeniable  evidence  of  his  spotless  integrity,  amiable  virtues, 
and  unblemished  honor.  And  yet  Messrs.  Cabell,  Call,  Stanard  &  Co. 
"  think  of  General  Jackson  as  they  always  did  !"  Examples  of  intellectual 
perfection!  On  a  subject  so  complex,  progressive  and  variable  as  human 
character — to  fix  which  the  canonizing  seal  of  death  is  required,  and  to 
ascertain  which  the  patient  research  of  the  historian  is  often  insufficient, 
their  impeccable  opinions  .are  neither  to  be  enlightened  by  time  nor  mqdi- 
fied  by  evidence  !  They  listen  not  to  the  increasing  plaudits  of  his  coun- 
trymen, 01  to  the  unvarying  testimony  of  his  neighbours — they  regard  not 
the  faithful  energy  with  which  he  has  filled  civil  offices,  nor  the  easy 
grandeur  with  which  he  resigned  them — and  they  turn  their  eyes  from  an 
act  of  moderation  and  magnanimity  which  has  no  parallel  in  the  history  of 
Grecian  or  of  I'  oman  greatness.  To  preserve  the  freedom  of  Corinth, 
Timoleon  permitted  the  as8assinati(>n  of  his  own  brother.  In  defence  of 
liberty  and  law,  Brutus  stabbed  his  friend  in  the  capitol  ;  and  poetry  and 
oratory  delight  to  portray  him  brandishing  his  bloody  dagger  over  the  body 
of  ('sBsir,  and  congratulating  Cicero  on  the  freedom  of  the  state.  But 
this  splendid  act,  tho..gh  described  in  the  immortal  eloquence  of  Tully,  or 
in  the  classical  numbers  of  Akenside,  must  lose  its  lustre  if  compared 
with  General  Jackson's  rejection  of  Buchanans'  overture.*  The  highest 
object  of  human  ambition  was  placed  within  reach  of  the  American  patriot. 
No  law  of  the  republic  was  to  be  violated,  no  feeling  of  the  heart  to  be 
outraged,  no  prejudice  cf  mankind  to  be  shocked — but  the  secret  virtue 
of  his  inmost  soul  could  not  be  turned  from  the  path  of  honor,  and  he 
subdued  th  ^  powerful  temptation  as  he  subdued  the  foes  of  his  country. 
Still  he  is  charged  with  an  '•  unreasonable  desire  to  fill  the  office  of  Presi- 
dent"— is  thought  of ''just  as  he  always  was"  by  the  Richmond  meeting! 
It  is  impossible  to  conceive  that  this  noble  act  of  General  Jackson  was  un- 
known to  the  gentlemen.  Nor  are  they  bound  to  dissent  from  the  general 
admiration  of  it,  in  order  to  arrive  at  a  perfect  faith  in  the  purity  of  the 
coalition.  The  most  favourable  account  that  can  be  given  of  their  en- 
deavour to  undervalue  or  discredit  it,  is  to  impute  it  to  a  feeling,  like  that 
of  the  Athenian  citizen,  who  voted  for  the  banisiiment  of  Aristides  because 
he  could  not  bear  to  hear  him  called  the  Just.  But  men  who  show  no 
mercy  to  facts,  can  do  little  justice  to  character. 

In  approaching"  the  subject  of  Mr.  Adams'  merits,  they  found  their  zeal 
in  his  favour  upon  sympathy  excited  by  the  strong  and  general  opposition 
which  his  election  and  his  measures  have  provoked — a  sentiment  for 
which  they  justly  claim  the  credit  of  generosity,  it  being  evident  that  zeal 
for  the  re-election  of  Mr.  Adams,  cannot  proceed  from  a  noble  love  of 
liberty,  a  prudent  regard  to  the  interests  of  the  country,  or  a  proper  respect 

*  "'Caesare  interfecto  inquit  statim  cruentum  alte  extollens  Marcus  Brutus  puffionem  Ciceronem 
nominatim  exclamavit  atque  ei  recuperatam  libertatem  eat  gratulatus.^^ — 2d  Philippic. 

"  Brutus  rose, 
Refulgent  from  the  stroke  of  <;i«sar"s  fate, 
Amid  the  crowd  of  patriots  and  hia  arm 
Aloft  extendi'!?:,  like  eternal  Jove 
When  guil"  brings  down  the  thunder,  call'd  aloud 
On     nlly's  name  and  shook  his  crimson  steel. 
And  bade  the  father  of  his  country  hail  ! 
For,  lo  •  the  tyrant  !  prostrate  in  the  dust, 
And  Rome  again  is  free." 


8 

for  its  institutions.  They  thus  sum  up  their  articles  of  faith  in  the  divine 
right  of  John  the  2d  ;  "  He  is  pure  and  upright  in  intention — patriotic, 
however  occasionally  mistaken — prudent  and  indefatiirable  in  the  discharge 
of  his  public  duties — blameless  and  irreproachable  in  private  life."  That 
honest  and  sagacious  traveller  Lemuel  Gulliver,  declared  that  the  shade  of 
Homer  was  introduced  to  the  shades  of  his  commentators,  in  his  presence  ; 
and  that  the  parties  appeared  to  have  been  totally  unacquainted  before. 

Should  the  shade  of  Lemuel  ever  visit  our  country,  know  Mr.  Adams, 
and  read  this  character  of  him,  he  would  sware  he  was  a  stranger  to  his 
best  friends.     They  have  drawn  the  character  of  Madison,  and  given  it  to 
the  public  for  that  of  Adams. — Was  Mr.  Adams,  pure  and  upright  in  brib- 
ing Mr.  Clay  to  elect  him  ;  in  betraying  the  federal  party  with  falsehoods 
to  Mr.  Jefferson,  and  reclaiming  it  by  promises  to  Mr.  Webster — m  charg- 
ing a  double  salary  and  for  a  constructive  journey,  while  minister,  and  pay- 
ing that  dishonest  charge  to  himself  while  Secretary  of  State  ?  Was  he  pat- 
riotic when  writing  his  letter  to  Levitt  Harris,  undervaluing  the  resources 
and  ridiculing  the  spirit  of  his  country,  wiien  that  country  was  involved  in 
the  casualties  of  a  bloody  war  ?  Did  patriotism  inspire  his  mind  when  he 
urged  the  surrender  to  England  of  the  free  navigation  of  the  Mississippi ; 
or  when  he  negotiated  away  the  Colonial  trade  ;  Was  he  patient  and  faith- 
ful in  the  discharge  of  his  duties  when  he  forced  on  the  Post  Master  Gen- 
eral the  appointment  of  the  present  deputy  at  Nashville,  and  repulced  with 
petulence  tiie  representations  of  this  state,  whilst  respectfully  deprecating 
that  act  of  oppression  ?     His  private  life,  in  so  far  as  it  can  be  seperated 
from  his  public  conduct,  does  not  reach  beyond  the  years  of  puberty — for 
his  youth,  his  manhood,  and  his  age,  have  been  spent  in  lucrative  connex- 
ion with  the  public  treasury.     But  if  the  Richmond  meeting  will  answer 
the  questions  above  proposed,  with  only  a  "small  approach"  to  acknowl- 
edged facts  in  the  conduct  of  Mr.  Adams,  they  will  render  perfectly  harm- 
less a  warmer  zeal  and  a  larger  minority,  than  they  represent  or  express. 
The  opposition  in  this  free  and  enlightened  country,  stern  and  general  as  it 
is,  it  comports  with  the  modesty  and  tolerance  of  these  gentlemen,  to  de- 
nounce, "  as  a  studious  misrepresentation  of  the  President's  measures," 
"  a  perversion  of  his  most  careless  language" — a  wanton  attack  on  his 
character  and  that  of  his  cabinet,  as  premature  and  unsupported  by  the 
real  character  of  the  Administration.     In  such  estimation  are  the  motives 
of  Macon,  Calhoun,  Van  Buren,  and  Tazewell,  held  by  gentlemen,  who  see 
in  the  career  of  Mr.  Clay  nothing  but  patriotism  and  virtue!  It  is  very 
true  that  an  opposition  to  the  re-election  of  Mr  Adams,  was  manifested  in 
the  country,  before  his  Administration  was  organized,  or  the  course  of  his 
policy  had  pointed  towards  arbitrary  power  and  cabinet  succession.     But 
the  Richmond  meeting  do  not  require  to  be  told,  that  this  opposition  was 
the  natural  effect  of  his  unfair  election,  and  was  therefore  necessarily  an- 
terior to  the  organization  of  his  government,  and  independent  of  the  char- 
acter of  his  measures.     An  equitable,  enlightened  and  prudent  administra- 
tion, might  indeed  have  allayed  this  original  opposition  ;  but  the  prudence 
of  Mr.  Adams'  measures  has  not  exceeded  the  purity  of  his  election,  and 
his  friends,  who  are  continually  boasting  of  his  skill  and  experience,  have 
the  mortification  to  find  the  policy  of  his  government  as  fruitful  a  source 
of  opposition  as  its  origin.     And  it  may  be  fairly  affirmed,  that  when  we 
consider  his  impure  election,  his  extravagant  doctrines,  and  mischievous  im- 
policy, the  opposition  is  as  temperate,  as  a  sentiment  so  strong  and  general, 
actuating  a  body  politic  as  sensative  and  robust  as  the  American  public, 
can  well  be  expected  to  be. 

Which  of  his  measures  are  conceived  to  have  been  "  studiously  misrep- 
resented" I  cannot  conjecture,  but  if  the  Panama  mission,  and  the  negotia- 
tion respecting  the  Colonial  trade,  are  the  subjects  of  this  misrepresenta- 


9 

tion,  the  advisers  ofMr.  Adams  in  Richmond,  would  relieve  his  feputationj 
and  add  to  their  own  very  much,  if  they  would  hasten  to  convince  the  coun- 
try, that  the  mission  of  Mr.  Sergeant  eventuated  in  any  thing-  better  tlian 
indelible  ridicule  and  prodigal  expense — and  that  our  profitable  trade  with 
the  British  West  Indies  has  really  not  been  transferred  to  the  ports  ot  the 
St.  Lawrence — and  the  north  of  Europe.  But  they  tell  the  people  of  Virgin- 
ia that  the  monarchial  declarations  of  Mr.  Adams,  in  his  first  message,  were 
not  serious,  were  merely  "  his  highness's  levity" — "  his  most  careless  lan- 
guage." What  must  !  e  think  of  the  heads  of  these  loyal  Virginians,  who 
can  invent  no  better  apology  for  his  solemn  and  considerate  expressions  ; 
or  what  must  we  think  of  his,  for  having  forced  his  advocates  to  such  damn- 
ing extremities  of  excuse. — It  is,  however,  easier  to  suppose  that  these 
gentlemen  in;iulged  in  "  most  careless  language"  in  framing  this  absurd 
apology  than  that  Mr.  Adams  did,  when  he  asserted  in  a  message  to  both 
Houses  of  Congress,  and  re-asserted  to  the  Senate  on  the  nomination  of 
Messrs.  Anderson  and  Sergeant,  the  "  constitutional  competancy  of  the 
executive"  to  institute  embassies  and  to  commission  envoys,  without  the  ad- 
vice or  consent  o!  the  senate  ;  and  when  he  counselled  the  national  repre- 
sentatives to  proceed  in  promoting  the  general  welfare  and  in  executing 
schemes  of  internal  improvement — in  building  "  Light  houses  of  the  sky," 
and  watching  the  radiance  and  revolutions  of  the  planets — without  being 
"  palsied  by  the  will  of  their  constituents." 

The  object  of  these  and  other  apologists  of  the  President,  is  to  reconcile 
the  country  to  his  unwarrentable  pretensions  upon  the  ground  that  they 
are  mere  abstract  opinions,  casually  conceived  and  "  carelessly"  expressed ; 
which  he  lias  never  attempted  and  never  will  attempt  to  reduce  to  practice, 
and  which,  in  the  instance  of  the  Panama  mission,  he  actually  abstained 
from  enforcing.  As  if  the  principle  were  not  every  thing,  and  the  prac- 
tice in  any  particular  case,  nothing  ?  Hamden  did  not  regard  the  amount 
of  ship  money  levied  upon  him,  but  he  resented  and  resisted,  at  great  cost 
and  peril,  the  principle  which  this  tax  of  20s.  involved.  And  his  factious 
opposition  is  called  by  the  loyal  Hume  himself,  "  a  bold  stand  in  defence 
of  the  laws  and  liberties  of  his  country"—"  by  which  he  merited  great  re- 
nown with  posterity."  The  factious  opposition  of  our  ancestors  to  the 
Stamp  Act.  was  not  to  the  particular  law  or  to  the  modicum  of  exaction,  but 
to  the  principle  of  taxing  the  people  of  this  country  without  the  consent  of 
their  representatives,  as  the  Adams  men  may  learn  by  consulting  Marshall's 
history  of  the  American  Colonies.  The  same  important  work  will  remind 
them,  that  when  that  irritating  measure  was  exchanged  for  the  more  in- 
vidious one  of  duties  on  certain  articles  of  importation,  the  same  principle 
of  oppression  was  descried  by  the  sagacity,  and  opposed  by  the  indepen- 
dence, of  our  fathers  ;  and  that  when  it  was  attempted  to  conciliate  them, 
by  a  repeal  of  all  the  duties  except  that  on  tea,  it  was  regarded  as  an  as- 
sertion, not  a  surrender,  of  the  odious  principle  of  taxation  without  repre- 
sentation, and  that  the  spirit  of  patriotic- resistance,  instead  of  being  as- 
suaged, rose  higher  and  higher,  until  it  flamed  forth  in  open  rebellion., 
Marshall  observes  (page  -388)  "  The  contest  with  America  was  plainly  a 
contest  of  principle,  and  had  been  conducted  entirely  on  principle  by  both 
parties.  The  amount  of  taxes  proposed  to  be  raised  was  too  inconsidera- 
ble to  interest  the  people  of  either  country.  But  the  principle  was,  in  the 
opinion  of  both,  of  the  utmost  magnitude."  So  the  contest  between  the 
President  and  the  People  of  the  United  States  is"  plainly  a  contest  of  prin- 
ciple," and  as  such  has  been  "  conducted  by  both  parties."  He  maintains 
the  twice  declared  doctrine  of  his  "  constitutional  competancy."  They 
complain  that  it  militates  directly  against  that  principle  cf  the  constitution, 
which  limits  the  control  of  the  executive  over  the  objects  and  expense  of 
2 


10 

our  diplomatic  intercourse. — This  principle  is  of  the  "  utmost  magnitude," 
and  it  differs  from  that  maintained  with  so  much  blood  and  treasure  by  our 
forefathers,  in  this,  that  it  is  expressly  defined  and  guaranteed  by  that 
written  constitution,  which  Mr.  Adams  swore  "  to  preserve,  protect,  and 
detiend."  Now  Mr.  Marshall,  who  placed  Mr.  Adams  under  the  "  solem- 
nities of  this  oath,"  tells  us  that  so  far  from  the  right  insisted  on  by  our  an- 
cestors, being  defined  and  settled  by  any  written  instrument,  it  existed 
only  in  their  natural  sense  of  justice,  and  inbred  love  of  liberty,  (p.  SS^O 
"  The  degree  of  authority,  which  might  rightfully  be  exercised  by  the 
mother  country  over  her  colonies,  had  never  been  accurately  defined.  In 
Britain  it  had  always  been  asserted  that  Parliament  possessed  the  power 
of  binding  them  in  all  cases  whatever.  In  America,  at  different  times  and 
in  different  provinces,  different  opinions  had  been  entertained  on  this  sub- 
ject." The  enforcement  of  this  plausible  authority,  going  only  to  the  col- 
lection of  an  inconsiderable  tax,  and  infringing  no  written  charter  of  liber- 
ty, roused  our  ancestors  to  arms.  And  yet  their  sons  are  persuaded  by 
the  Richmond  meeting  to  submit  to  a  palpable  violation  of  their  bond  of 
Union  and  Government,  subjecting  them  to  unlimited  expense,  and  involv- 
ing a  vital  change  of  its  provisions  !  Verily,  the  patriotism  of  this  conven- 
ticle "  passeth  all  understanding  !" 

Taking  counsel  of  their  loyalty,  they  evidently  deem  lightly  of  the  prin- 
ciple at  issue  between  the  country  and  the  cabinet,  and  conceive  that  the 
practical  waiver  of  it,  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Adams  in  the  case  of  the  Panama 
mission,  ought,  of  rigiit,  to  have  prevented  the  opposition,  which  they  as- 
cribe to  "  a  personal  and  vindictive  spirit."  In  this  sentiment  they  will 
probably  be  pleased  to  learn,  that  they  coincide  with  that  prince  of  novel- 
ists and  tories.  Sir  Walter  Scott.  In  attempting  the  life  of  JVapoleon^  he 
reproa«;hes  the  people  of  France  with  "  a  rancorous  and  vindictive  opposi- 
tion," because  they  objected  to  the  king's  assuming  the  right  of  granting 
a  constitution  to  the  nation,  and  insisted  on  the  constitution's  emanating 
from  the  people.  Sir  Walter  favors  the  arrogance  of  the  Monarch,  and 
says  "the  objections  of  the  French  people  were,  practically  speaking,  of  no 
consequence."  "  It  signifies  nothing,"  says  he,  "  to  the  people  of  France, 
whether  the  constitution  was  proposed  to  the  King  by  the  National  Rep- 
resentatives, or  by  the  King  to  them."  In  the  same  spiric,  the  Richmond 
meeting  conceive  that  the  limitations  of  executive  power  "  are,  practically 
speaking,"  of  equal  value,  whether  they  are  secured  by  the  provisions  of 
the  constitution,  or  granted  by  the  indulgence  of  Mr.  Adams.  But,  if  they 
do  not  regard  the  existing  encroachments  and  actual  misrule  of  the  Pres- 
ident of  sufficient  importance  to  warrant  a  transfer  of  power  to  more  able 
and  honest  hands,  let  them  remember  that  Mr.  Adams  came  into  office  with 
"  a  smaller  approach  to  unanimity"  than  any  of  his  predecessors,  and  that 
his  first  message  and  his  first  term  are  to  be  taken  as  the  lowest  range  of 
his  ambition.  Elect  him  again,  and  ratify  his  missayings  and  misdoings 
by  the  voice  of  Virginia — that  State  which,  in  the  language  of  Burke,  once 
was  foremost  to  "  augur  misgovernment  at  a  distance,  and  snuff  the  ap- 
proach of  tyranny  in  every  tainted  breeze" — will  not  his  high-born  spirit, 
which  looks  above  the  constitution  for  the  sources  of  power,  take  a  bolder 
and  a  loftier  flight  ?  May  he  not  aim  at  transforming  the  line  of  safe  pre- 
cedent into  the  power  of  appointing  his  successor,  which  would  show  his 
noble  disdain  of  "  the  will  of  his  constituents,"  his  diplomatic  intimacy  with 
the  spirit  of  foreign  monarchies,  and  would  rise  above  his  present  preten- 
sions about  as  far  as  they  are  above  the  level  of  the  Constitution  ? 

The  first  year  of  Charles  the  Second's  reign,  after  he  was  restored  to 
the  throne  of  his  father,  are  admitted  on  all  hands,  by  round-head  and  cav- 
alier, whig  and  tory,  to  have  been  legal  and  moderate. — But  as  soon  as  he 


11 

got  firmly  seated,  he  showed  tlie  people  that  love  of  pleasure  was  inferior 
to  lust  of  power,  and  that  "  the  most  careless  language"  often  escaped  from 
the  most  determined  tyrant. 

Louis  the  XVIII.  for  the  first  year  or  two,  was  moderate  and  gentle  in 
his  sway,  but  he  soon  muzzled  the  press,  and  effected  a  complete  despot- 
ism. And  why  should  we  think  that  what  is  true  of  a  Stuart,  or  a  Bour- 
bon, is  not  true  of  an  Adams? 

Shall  we  act  prudently  to  ourselves,  and  gratefully  to  our  ancestors,  or 
justly  to  our  posterity,  if  for  no  other  object  than  the  emolument  and  grat- 
ification of  a  few  unworthy  men,  we  risk  our  rights  and  liberties,  our  in- 
heritance of  glory  and  freedom,  in  their  unclean  and  incapable  hands  ? 
When  the  Richmond  meeting  ask  the  people  of  Virginia  "  what  benefit 
they  expect  to  derive,  what  triumph  of  principle  they  expect  to  achieve  by 
the  election  of  Gen.  Jackson,"  they  may  be  answered,  that  they  expect  to 
vindicate  the  purity  of  election,  by  the  exemplary  punishment  of  its  viola- 
tion, the  safety  of  the  constitution,  by  withholding  power  from  its  avowed 
enemy  ;  and  the  liberty  of  the  press,  by  relieving  the  treasury  from  the  ex- 
pense of  its  corruption.  That  they  expect  to  restore  dignity  and  truth  to 
our  foreign  intercourse,  economy  and  justice  to  our  domestic  government, 
fidelity  to  the  representative  and  influence  to  the  constituent,  supremacy 
to  the  law,  and  satisfaction  to  the  people. 

The  Richmond  meeting  having  disinterred  from  "  the  tomb  of  the  Cap- 
ulets,"  the  old  charges  connected  with  Gen.  Jackson's  defence  of  New-Or- 
leans and  occupation  of  Pensacola,  I  beg  leave  to  invade  your  columns 
briefly  in  his  defence,  at  the  risk  of  being  denounced,  in  the  same  wise  and 
equitable  spirit,  for  a  violation  of  the  laws  of  courtesy,  and  the  limits  of  ed- 
itorial neutrality.  Their  accusations  branched  out  into  the  criminating 
accounts  of  an  indictment,  and  reiterated  with  the  spiteful  tautology  of  at- 
tornies,  amount  to  these  two  :  "that  General  Jackson  has  invaded  a  neu- 
tral country  in  defiance  of  orders,  and  in  violation  of  that  provision  of  the 
constitution,  which  intrusts  the  power  of  peace  and  war  to  the  President," 
and  "  has  suspended  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  upon  his  individual  authority." 

How  far  the  invasion  of  Florida  was  in  defiance  of  orders^  may  be  deter- 
mined by  reference  to  the  following  documentary  abstract.  On  the  9th  of 
December,  1817,  the  Secretary  of  War  ordered  Gen.  Gaines  "should  the 
Indians  assemble  in  force  on  the  Spanish  side  of  the  line,  and  persevere  in 
committing  hostilities,  within  the  limits  of  the  United  States  in  that  event, 
to  exercise  a  sound  discretion^  as  to  the  propiiety  of  crossing  the  line  for  the 
purpose  of  attacking  them  and  hreaking  up  their  towns'  On  the  16th  of 
December,  he  writes  to  the  same,  "  should  the  Seminole  Indians  still  re- 
fuse to  make  reparation  for  their  outrages  and  depredations  on  the  citizens 
of  the  United  States,  it  is  the  wish  of  the  President^  that  you  consider  your- 
self at  liberty  to  march  across  the  Florida  line,  and  attack  theni  unthin  its  lim- 
t<s."*  Soon  after  this  last  order  the  President  received  intelligence  of  the 
massacre  of  Mrs.  Garret  and  her  family,  and  the  shocking  butchery  of 

*  This  wish  of  the  President  was  of  no  very  recent  date.  As  early  as  the  19th  October,  1813, 
when  Gen.  Armstrong,  then  Secretary  of  War,  was  on  the  Canada  frontier,  Mr.  Monroe,  Sec- 
retary of  State,  thus  expressed  himself  to  Governor  Blount,  of  Tennessee—"  Sir,  I  am  instrucf- 
ed  by  the  President  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  your  Excellency's  letter  of  the  28th  ult.''  '■!  he 
menaced  invasion  of  your  State  by  the  hostile  Creeks  must  be  met  with  a  decision  which  vill 
not  only  give  security  to  yourselves,  but  be  felt  beneficially  through  the  whole  extent  of  our 
southern  country.  Our  citizens  must  not  contmue  to  be  the  victims,  either  of  the  aggressions 
of  that,  or  any  other  tribe,  whether  they  be  voluntary,  or  be  made  at  the  instigation  of  British  or 
Spanish  intrigue  or  seduction.^^ 

The  letter  containing  this  passage  was  forwarded  by  Gov.  Blount  to  General  Jackson,  and  at 
that  early  day  conveyed  to  his  mind  a  proper  notion  of  the  views  of  Mr.  Monroe  respe-  ting  the 
character  of  the  Indian  war,  and  of  the  energetic  meanures  which  would  be  required  to  bring  it 
to  a  speedy  and  effectual  conclusion. 


12 

Lieut.  Scott  and  his  detachment  of  thirty  men.  Under  the  melancholy  im- 
pression of  these  events,  he  had  recourse  to  the  well  known  energy  and 
talent  of  the  "  Military  Chieftain,"  and  called  upon  him  to  repair  to  the 
scene  of  danger  and  "terminate  the  conflict." 

The  first  order  he  received,  dated  the  •26th  Dec.  1817,  recited  "the  in- 
creasintr  display  of  hostile  intentions  by  the  Seminole  Indians,"  and  author- 
ized him  to  call  on  the  executives  of  the  adjoining  States  for  a  military 
force  sufficient  "  to  beat  the  enemy."  It  also  informed  him  that  Gen. 
Gaines,  his  second  in  command,  had  been  directed  "to  penetrate  from 
Amelia  Island,  tfirou^ih  Flotida,  to  the  Seminole  towns."  With  this  view, 
(the  Secretary  adds,)  "  you  may  be  prepared  to  concentrate  your  force,  and 
to  adopt  necessary  measures,  to  terminate  the  conflict."  It  cannot  be  dis- 
puted that  these  orders  not  only  authorized  General  Jackson,  but  actually 
commanded  him,  to  invade  Florida. 

He  is  informed  that  since  the  order  authorizing  Gen.  Gaines  "to  march 
across  the  Florida  line,  and  attack  the  Indians  within  its  limits"  were  issu- 
ed, the  Government  had  learnt  "  their  increasing  display  of  hostile  inten- 
tions," in  the  murder  of  Mrs.  Garret  and  family,  and  »»f  Lieut.  Scott  and 
his  men,  that  therefore  (ien.  Gaines  had  been  directed  to  penetrate  from 
Amelia  Island  through  Florida,  and  co-operate  in  an  attack  on  the  Semi- 
nole towns,  if  his  force  were  sufficient  for  that  offensive  operation  ;  and  that 
"with  this  view"  he  himself  was  expected  "to  concentrate  his  force,  and 
adopt  the  necessary  measures  to  terminate  the  conflict."  JVith  what  view, 
let  me  ask  Messrs.  Cabel,  Call,  and  Stanard,  was  General  Jackson  "to 
concentrate  his  force  and  adopt  his  measures  ?"  They  can  only  answer, 
with  the  view  of  "  penetrating  into  Florida,"  and  carrying  on  withm  its 
limits  such  military  operations,  as  might  be  "  necessary  to  terminate  the 
conflict." — What  justification,  rather  what  apology,  can  they  offer  against 
the  indignation  of  their  readers,  and  the  reproaches  of  truth,  for  declaring, 
with  the  affectation  of  regret  too,  that  this  act  of  Gen.  Jackson  was  "  in 
defiance  of  orders!"  The  orders  themselves  correspond  with  the  act,  and 
the  act  conforms  to  the  interpretation  given  to  the  orders  by  the  govern- 
ment that  issued  them.  On  the  25th  of  March,  1818,  the  President,  in  a 
message  to  Congress,  adverting  to  the  course  and  spirit  of  the  Indian  hos- 
tilities, says,  Gen.  Jackson  "  was  ordered  to  the  theatre  of  action,  charged 
with  the  management  of  the  war,  and  vested  with  the  powers  necessary  to 
give  it  effect."  And  on  the  13th  May,  following,  the  Secretary  of  War 
writes  to  Gov.  Bibb,  "  General  Jackson  is  vested  with  full  powers  to  con- 
duct the  war  in  the  manner  he  may  judge  best." 

Now,  how  could  General  Jackson's  discretion,  which  was  intrusted  with 
these  "  full  powers,"  fail  to  determine  ^on  crossing  the  Florida  line,  in  or- 
der to  comply  with  his  instructions  "  to  beat  the  enemy"  and  to  "  termin- 
ate the  conflict,"  when  that  enemy  was  situated  "within  the  limits  of  Flor- 
ida ?"  It  is  counting  nothing  on  the  justice  of  the  Richmond  meeting  to 
affirm,  that  even  they  will  admit  it  was  impossibk.  As  this  act  of  General 
Jackson  was  authorized  and  commanded  by  the  President  of  the  United 
y States,  ,whom,  as  a  Major  General  in  the  service,  he  was  bound  to  obey,  it 
V  no  part  of  his  defence,  to  disprove  the  allegation  of  its  being  in  violation 
of  a  provision  in  the  constitution.  This  charge  were  it  sustainable,  would 
ev\dently  miss  General  Jackson  and  hit  Mr.  Monroe.  But  it  was  debated 
in  the  House  of  Representatives  with  intense  eagerness  for  about  three 
weeks ;  was  discussed  by  32  members,  and  inforced  by  all  the  boasted 
management  and  eloquence  of  Mr.  Clay  ;  and  yet  was  decided  in  the  neg- 
ative by  a  vote  of  100  to  70,  with  the  votes  of  Messrs.  Sergeant,  Southard, 
and  Newton  among  the  nays.  To  them  I  beg  to  refer  the  meeting  for  its 
further  discussion,  remarking  only,  that  the  entrance  of  the  American 


13 

army  into  Florida,  and  their  provisional  assertion  of  our  belligerent  rights, 
in  place  of  the  abused  or  the  direlict  authority  of  Spain,  was  no  violation  of 
neutrality,  much  less  an  act  of  war ;  but  an  act  strictly  defensive ;  author-  ^ 
ized  by  the  principle  of  self-preservation,  which  is  derived  from  the  law  of 
nature  itself;  is  recognized  by  the  law  of  nations,  and  conduces  to  their 
mutual  safety,  and  under  the  obligations  of  which  the  President,  to  whom 
the  constitution  commits  the  defence  of  the  nation,  and  the  assertion  of  its 
rights,  was  bound  to  prosecute  the  war  with  the  Seminole  Indians,  to  a 
speedy  and  successful  issue. 

The  right  of  self-defence,  belonging  to  the  nation,  and  committed  to  the 
President,  carried  with  it  a  right  to  the  means  of  its  exercise.*  And  the 
inability  of  the  Sj>anish  authorities,  or  their  unwillingness  to  preserve  tow- 
ards us  the  general  obligations  of  neutrality,  or  to  comply  with  the  pobitive 
stipulations  of  a  treaty  binding  them  to  restrain  the  Indians,  within  their 
limits,  from  hostilities  against  the  citizens  of  the  United  States,  brought 
Geneial  Jackson's  military  operations,  in  Florida,  strictly  within  the  num- 
ber of  these  means.  But  whether  regarded  as  they  relate  to  the  constitu- 
tion of  this  country,  or  as  they  effected  the  rights  of  Spain,  they  are  equal- 
ly insufficient  to  inculpate  General  Jackson.  He  acted  like  other  com- 
manders, under  the  orders  of  his  government,  and  these  orders  he  execu- 
ted vvith  his  usual  energy  and  address. 

He  was  not  responsible  for  their  nature,  or  for  the  extent  of  operations 
which  they  commanded,  and  therefore  needed  no  defence.  And  the  fact  is, 
that  in  the  despatch  of  Mr.  Adams,  when  Secretary  of  State,  to  our  Min- 
ister in  Spain,  dated  28th  November,  1818,  (which  has  been  so  invidiously 
— and  I  may  say  ignorantly  lauded  as  an  able  and  liberal  defence  of  Gen- 
eral Jackson,  and  which  so  far  as  it  re^arards  this  matter,  is  nothing  more 
than  a  verbose  and  declamatory  rehersal  of  the  evidence  and  arguments 
furnished  by  the  General  himself,  in  explanation  of  his  measuref)  the  name 
of  Jackson  is  introduced  for  no  other  than  the  usual  diplomatic  purpose  of 
making  the  officer  the  scape-goat  for  the  government. 

The  next  charge  of  the  Richmond  meeting,  "  he  has  suspended  the 
writ  of  habeas  corpus  upon  his  individual  authority,"  besides  the  fault  of 
expression,  in  using  individual  where  official  was  required,  and  the  glar- 
ing incongruity  between  a  belief  in  these  charges  and  the  e-rly  declara- 
tion of  the  meeting,  that  they  apprehend  from  the  General  "  no  attack  on 
public  liberty,"  and  "  repose  undiminished  confidence  in  his  love  of  coun- 
try ;"  an  incongruity  which  shows  that  the  end  of  their  address  had  for- 
gotten the  begining,  contains  a  positive  mis-statement  of  fact.  General 
Jackson  did  not  suspend  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus.  I  am  perfectly  aware, 
that  the  true  questi<m  growing  out  of  the  defence  of  New-Orleans,  is  not 
whether  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  was  or  not  suspended,  but  whether  Gen- 
eral Jackson  did  or  did  not,  on  that  memorable  occasion,  perform  his  duty. 
I  am  also  satisfied,  that  no  friend  to  his  country,  can  lay  his  hand  on  his 
heart  and  say,  he  did  not  perform  it. — But  his  merit  is  so  rich  in  relation 
to  that  defence,  that  I  am  willing  to  pursue  the  criminal  inquiry  set  on  foot 
by  the  unfounded  ^nd  irrelevant  charge  of  the  meeting,  confident  of  being 
able  to  show,  that  their  own  mode  of  investigation  must  demonstrate  the 
General's  renown,  and  their  own  injustice.  It  appears  to  me,  that  the 
public  writers  in  Virginia,  who  have  been  shivering  their  lances  against 
the  "broad  circumference"  of  General  Jackson's  fame,  and  especially  the 

*Vattel,  page  241. 

t  For  the  arguments  and  evidences  here  referred  to,  See  documents  (25)  accompanying  the 
President's  Message,  December  2d,  1818  ;  particularly  the  General's  despatches  of  the  5th  of 
May  and  the  2d  of  June,  1818,  and  their  enclosures,  and  compare  them  with  Mr.  Adams'  letter 
to  George  Washington  Irving. 


14 

contrivers  of  this  address,  imitate  the  acts  of  necromancers,  who,  in  calling 
up  the  dead  and  communicating  with  the  devil,  are  represented  to  begin 
by  alarming  the  spectators  with  exhibitions  of  skulls  and  skeletons.prodigi- 
ous  shadows  on  the  wall,  magical  circles  on  the  floor,  blue  flames,  livid 
smoke,  and  other  such  fearful  sights.  So,  the  politicians  alluded  to,  always 
endeavour  to  terrify  and  mislead  the  judgment  of  their  reader,  by  parad- 
ing a  number  of  technical  phrases — the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  the  liberty  of 
the  citizen^  the  liberty  of  the  press^  &c.  as  if  these  constitutional  blessings 
had  been  destroyed  by  General  Jackson,  and  had  not,  in  fact,  been  pre- 
served to  the  people  of  New-Orleans,  by  his  prudence,  patriotism,and  valour. 
This  pernicious  sophistry  results,  in  part  from  the  absence  of  facts  for  the 
foundation  of  their  attack  ;  in  part,  from  the  brood  of  attornies  produced 
by  their  ponderous  jurisprudence  ;  and,  in  part,  from  their  exclusive  read- 
ing of  English  history  and  English  law  wherein  these  safe-guards  of  free- 
dom are  frequently  seen  struggling  under  the  gripe  of  oppressicm,  and 
faintly  dawning  out  after  a  night  of  darkness,  hut  here,  where  they 
are  the  staff  of  our  political  life  as  general  and  current  as  the  air  we 
breathe,  they  should  be  contemplated  without  agitation,  and  handled  with- 
out hysterics.  If  the  Richmond  meeting  would  condescend  to  follow  the 
advice  of  Dr.  Franklin  to  Buffon,  and  would  ascertain  facts  before  they 
philosophized,  they  would  find,  that  General  Jackson  did  not  suspend  the 
writ  01  habeas  corpus.  On  the  contrary  in  order  to  prevent  any  interfer- 
ence of  this  delicate  process  of  civil  authority,  at  a  crisis  so  dangerous, 
with  the  military  power,  he  recommended  to  the  legislature  of  Louisiana, 
as  they  had  assumed  the  power  of  laying  an  embargo  and  of  closing  the 
courts  of  justice,  to  suspend  the  WTit  of  habeas  corpus.  His  recommen- 
dation was  not  complied  with.*  But,  let  me  ask,  did  the  writ  of  habeas 
corpus  ever  discharge  a  soldier  under  confinement  in  the  camp  of  General 
Washington,  or  of  General  Greene,  or  of  any  other  commander,  in  time 
of  war  and  invasioH  ?  General  Jackson  had  found  it  necessary,  as  there 
was  a  levy,  en  masse,  of  the  citizens,  to  incorporate  the  City  of  New- 
Orleans  within  the  limits  of  his  camp,  by  encompassing  it  with  a  chain  of 
centinels,  and  extending,  of  consequence,  over  it,  (what  the  attornies  call 
martial  law,)  the  influence  of  the  rules  and  articles  established  by  Con- 
ress  for  the  government  of  the  armies  of  the  United  States,  whether  of 
regulars  or  militia.  But  this  extensive  castrametation,  which  made  a 
popular  city  seem  to  revolve  around  a  small  army,  is  objected  to.  Facts 
will  show,  with  what  justice.  When  General  Jackson  arrived  at  New- 
Orleans,  he  found  the  population  prostrate  with  fear  and  despondency. 

His  presence,  prowess,  and  activity,  awakend  a  very  different  spirit  ;  the 
patriotic  citizens  manifesting  ardour  and  confidence,  and  gradually  dis- 
tinguishing themselves  from  the  disaffected  French,  who,  under  the  aus- 
pices of  the  French  consul,  and  out  of  gratitude  to  the  English  for  the 
restoration  of  the  Bourbons,  were  discovering  "  an  awful  squinting  at 
monarchy."  Governor  Claiborne  had  written  to  General  Jackson,  "  the 
country  is  said  to  be  filled  with  spies  and  traitors" — "  there  is  in  this  city  a 
greater  spirit  of  disaffection  than  I  had  anticipated" — "  my  greatest  difii- 
culty  is  with  the  European  Frenchmen,  who,  after  giving  their  adhesion 
to  Louis  the  Eighteenth,  have,  through  the  medium  of  the  French  consul, 
claimed  exemption  from  the  drafts,  as  French  subjects,"  though  they  had 
come  into  the  American  family  of  choice,  under  the  treaty  of  cession,  and 
exercised  the  rights  of  citizenship  ever  since,  as  General  Jackson  discov- 
ered by  inspectmg  the  election  polls.  The  Governor  adds,  that,  after 
consulting  legal  advisers,  he  had  taken  upon  himself  to  banish  a  suspected 

*  Eaton's  Life  of  Jackson,  page  278, 


15 

inhabitant,  by  ordering  him  "  to  depart  from  the  state  in  forty-eight  hours." 
So  sensible,  indeed,  were  all  the  faithful  citizens,  and  every  prominent 
authority  in  New-Orleans,  of  the  necessity  of  removing  all  obstructions 
to  the  enforcement  of  the  paramoijnt  law  of  self-defence,  that  the  Legisla- 
ture having  no  power  under  the  constitution  to  regulate  or  restrain  com- 
merce, passed  an  act  laying  an  embargo,  which  the  Governor  sanctioned, 
and  the  citizens  acquiesced  in.  In  that  case,  the  Legislature  acted,  and 
wisely  acted,  on  the  principle  of  self-preservation,  recognized  in  the  pream- 
able  to  the  constitution,  "  to  provide  for  the  common  defence  ;"  and  did 
that  for  their  constituents  whscJi  Congress,  to  whom  they  had  delegated 
the  power,  would  if  they  could,  have  done  for  them.  The  Legislature 
also  passed  a  law,  closing  the  courts  of  justice  for  four  months,  which 
the  Governor  assented  to,  and  the  judiciary  solemnly  approved.  And 
Judge  Hall  himself,  discharged  without  bail  or  recognizance,  persons 
committed  and  indicted  for  capital  offences,  against  the  United  States — 
concurring  with  the  other  departments  of  power,  in  their  conviction  of  the 
Itgal  necessity  of  superseding  the  less  essential  and  elementry  provisions 
of  law,  by  the  great  law  of  self-defence.  And  was  General  Jackson,  who 
held  all  the  power  which  the  United  States  could  exert  in  defence  of 
this  important  and  vulnerable  position,  to  resist  these  practical  analogies, 
and  revolt  from  this  great  law,  at  a  moment  when  the  'wvito^ habeas  corpus 
was  perverted  to  endanger  liberty,  when  the  hopes  of  the  nation,  the  in- 
terests of  millions,  the  lives  of  thousands,  rested  on  his  single  arm  ?  Was 
he  to  repeat  for  his  country  the  Bladensburgh  races,  or  to  fight  for  her 
the  battle  of  New-Orleans  ? 

Had  he  fashioned  his  conduct  to  suit  the  taste  and  win  the  applause  of 
the  Richmond  meeting,  he  might  have  had  Generals  and  Attorney-Gene- 
rals, Barristers  and  Merchants,  from  the  city,  capering  about  his  lines, 
discouraging  his  men,  disconcerting  his  measures,  and  scamperinp-  away 
from  the  enemy.  He  chose  rather  to  have  citizen  soldiers,  and  to  make 
those  who  owned  the  power  contended  for,  share  in  the  toil  and  danger  of 
its  protection.  A  rich  and  testy  dealer  in  cotton,  who  looked  as  if  "  but 
for  these  vile  guns  he  would  himself  have  been  a  soldier,"  accosted  the 
General,  who  was  piling  up  cotton  bales  against  Wellington's  invincibles, 
and  requested  that  he  ^^  appoint  a  guard  for  his  cotton."  "Certainly," 
replied  the  General,  "  your  request  shall  be  complied  with — here,  sergeant, 
give  this  gentleman  a  musket  and  ammunition,  and  station  him  in  the 
line  of  defence  ;  no  one  can  be  better  qualified  to  guard  the  cotton,  than 
the  owner  of  it."  Thus  the  dealer  was  delt  with.  This  commanding 
spirit,  confirmed  by  the  example  of  the  other  authorities,  and  by  the  pres- 
sure of  the  moment,  suggested  to  General  Jackson  the  prudence  of  com- 
prehending New-Orleans  itself  in  his  camp  :  of  taking  the  city  he  was  to 
defend  under  his  protection.  The  measure  was  discussed  with  eminent 
citizens  in  the  presence  of  Judge  Hall,  and  approved  by  others,  was  not 
excepted  to  by  him.  It  was  advised  and  adopted  distinctly  on  the  ground 
of  public  necessity,  of  which  all  were  convinced,  and  none  even  now  can 
doubt.  If  the  noted  Louaiilier,  under  the  influence  of  the  royalist  Blan- 
que,  and  the  officious  Judge  (whose  fault  is  atoned  by  the  fact  that  he  soon 
repented  it,  and  he  died  a  sincere  friend  and  admirer  of  Jackson)  brought 
without  necessity,  and  upon  a  secondary  principle,  the  civil  authority  into 
collision  with  the  millitary  power  .when  exerted /rom  necessity  and  for  the 
primary  objects  of  the  constitution,  it  was  no  fiiult  of  the  General.  It  is 
not  the  first  time  that  enactments,  provided  for  the  liberty  of  the  citizen, 
have  been  found  temporarily  incompatible  with  the  safety^  of  the  state. 
Hence  the  well  known  maxim  of  the  civil  law.  Inter  arma  silent  leges.  It 
is  not  the  only  conflict  that  has  or  can  be  found  between  separate  provis- 


16 

ions,  or  between  the  end  and  details  of  our  constitution.  Treaties,  when 
approved  by  the  Senate  and  ratified  by  the  President,  are  declared  to  be 
"  the  supreme  law  of  the  land,"  and  yet  members  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives claim,  and  justly  too,  the  right  of  disregarding  this  supreme  law, 
and  of  interposing  their  power  over  bills  of  revenue.  The  right  of  proper- 
ty is  secure  under  the  constitutiim  ;  and  yet,  in  certain  cases,  a  military 
officer  may  seize  the  means  of  subsistence  or  of  transportatiou,  leaving 
only  a  fair  compensation  to  the  owner,  on  the  just  ground  of  necessity. 
The  trial  by  jury  is  the  birth-right  of  the  citizen,  and  a  dearer  right  than 
that  secured  by  the  habeas  corpus,  and  yet  the  judicial  power  sets  this  right 
at  defiance,  and  punishes  for  contempt,  without  the  intervention  of  a  jury, 
upon  the  ground  of  legal  necessity.  In  violation  of  the  same  right,  our 
legislative  bodies  punish  abitrarily  any  citizen  who  may  attempt  an  abuse 
of  their  dignity  or  privileijes,  and  Mr.  Clay  himself  exercised  this  power 
in  the  case  of  John  Anderson,  "^he  truth  is,  these  anomalies  must  be  tol- 
erated even  in  our  fair  and  effective  system,  on  the  ground  of  necessity. 
The)''  are  essential  to  the  principles  they  seem  to  oppose.  The  inconsisten- 
cy of  military  power  witli  the  spirit  of  our  institutions,  arises  from  the  na- 
ture of  things — not  from  the  character  of  this  or  that  commander — from 
the  opposite  characters  of  peace  and  war,  and  the  adverse  dispositions  of 
mind  on  which  these  conditions  of  society  are  founded. 

Force  is  the  principle  of  war.  Equity  the  spirit  of  peace.  These  two 
elements,  however  elaborated  by  civilization  or  ramified  into  consequences, 
cannot  be  divested  of  their  original  discordance.  The  prudence  of  our 
magistrates,  and  the  patriotism  of  our  citizen?,  have  in  most  instances, 
prevented  their  collision  ;  but  Louaillier  and  Judge  Hall  determined  to 
bring  them  into  conflict.  On  the  13ih  of  February,  Admiral  Cochrane 
had  written  to  General  Jackson  that  he  had  received  from  Jamaica  unoffi- 
cial intelligence  of  peace.  The  General  received  his  letter  on  the  2lst, 
and  immediately  addressed  to  him  this  inquiry — "  whether  he  considered 
the  intelligence  as  authorizing  a  cessation  of  hostilities  ?"  which  inquiry 
was  answered  in  the  negative.  But  with  the  retreat  of  the  enemy  to  their 
ships,  the  danger  appeared  to  many  to  be  over,  and  the  impatience  of 
military  duty  which  this  impression  created,  was  the  motive  upon  which 
Louaillier  operated.  Although  the  General  in  a  proclamation  had  caution- 
ed the  citizens  "  not  to  be  thrown  into  false  security  by  the  intelligence  of 
peace,"  observing  "  even  if  it  were  true  that  peace  had  been  signed  in  Eu- 
rope, it  could  not  put  an  end  to  the  war  until  it  should  be  ratified  by  the 
two  governments,"* — although  the  British,  who  had  been  re-inforced  by  a 
larger  body  of  fresh  troops,  lay  in  half  a  day's  sail  of  New-Orleans,  by 
a  passage  which  the  batteries  at  Cht/Menteur  and  Fort  Coquilles  de- 
fended, Louaillier  published  a  piece  that  caused  the  Louisiana  compa- 
nies which  manned  these  batteries,  to  desert,  return  into  the  city,  and 
leave  it  exposed.  He  was  arrested  for  exciting  mutmy  and  desertion  in 
the  camp,  and  for  giving  intelligence  to  the  enemy,  and  to  discharge  him 
from  arrest.  Judge  Hall  issued  his  writ.  The  writ  was  resisted.  It  was 
proved  by  the  testimony  of  the  clerk,  that  the  writ  was  actually  issued  be- 
fore the  arrest  of  Louaillier,  and  that  the  date  had  been  altered  by  the 
Judge  to  suit  the  occasion. — This  was  proof  of  complicity  on  his  part,  that 
rendered  the  proceeding  more  exceptionable.  But  General  Jackson  de- 
clined availing  himself  of  this  defect,  and  met  the  prinicple  fairly,  assert- 
ing the  necessity  of  adhearing  to  his  plan  of  defence,  and  maintaining 
military  power.  Nor  did  he  stop  to  ascertain  what  statute  had  conferred 
on  a  District  Judge  of  the  United  States,  power  to  issue  a  process,  which, 

*  Historical  Memoirs  by  Latour. 


17 

touching  the  liberty  of  the  citizen,  and  being  in  its  nature  the  creature  of 
statute,  would  more  properly  emanate  from  the  state  judiciary.  As  all 
other  commanders  in  this  Union,  on  occasions  of  less  necessity,  had  done, 
he  kept  the  civil  process  out  of  the  camp.  And  would  the  gentlemen  of 
Richmond  have  had  him  yield  to  the  officious  Judge  and  mal-content  citizen 
— to  suffer  his  troops  to  desert,  and  defences  to  be  abandoned,  when  a  supe- 
rior hostile  force,  unused  to  defeat,  and  intent  on  "  beauty  and  booty"  was 
not  farther  from  New-Orleans  than  City  Point  is  from  Richmond — New- 
Orleans  far  more  important  to  lose  and  difficult  to  recover  than  Richmond  ? 
Was  the  temporary  restraint  of  Louaillier,  the  momentary  suppression  of 
his  cacoethes  scribendi,  a  greater  evil  than  the  permanent  conquest  of  New- 
Orleans.The  meeting  described  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  "as  the  safe-guard 
of  individual  liberty," — but  at  the  crisis  refered  to,  the  power  of  General 
Jackson  was  the  safe-guard  of  the  liberty  of  thousands,  and  individual  lib' 
erty  was  not  to  endanger  so  great  a  stake.  He  who  brought  it  into  collision 
with  this  great  object,  acted  like  a  bitter  foe  to  his  country,  and  was  no 
more  entitled  to  respect  than  he  would  have  been,  had  he,  on  the  8th  of 
January,  interposed  his  person  between  the  American  riflemen  and  the 
enemy,  and  insisted  on  the  former  not  firing  for  fear  of  taking  his  life. 
The  truth  is,  the  Judge,  the  citizens,  the  army  and  the  people,  were  all 
embarked  in  the  same  vessel,  and  in  the  same  storm.  Mc^asures  proper 
for  the  defence  of  all,  were  by  the  law  of  necessity,  obligatory  on  all,  and 
the  pilot  to  whose  strong  arm  the  helm  was  consigned,  would  have  been 
guilty  both  of  crime  and  folly,  had  he  relinquished  it  merely  because 
land  was  in  sight.  This,  General  Jackson  would  not  do,  and  his  patriotic 
firmness  has  excited  the  lasting  gratitude  of  the  American  people.  The 
sentiments  which  the  same  people  entertain  for  those  who  rail  at  him  for 
serving — nay  saving  his  country — for  not  permitting  his  centinels  to  be 
snhpoE.na'd  from  their  postb,  or  his  men  removed  by  writ  of  habeas  corpus 
from  their  guns,  acts  which  lawyers  enough  could  have  been  found  to 
justify — the  Richmond  meeting  will  be  able  to  discover,  should  they,  who 
are  so  pure  from  all  stain  of  military  glory,  ever  hereafter  make  an  ap- 
peal to  their  fellow  citizens  for  promotion  to  political  honors.  But  the 
civil  authority,  which  from  its  mal-admistration,  he  was  obliged  to  offend, 
he  propitiated  in  a  manner  so  signal,  as  to  return  it  greater  strength  and 
sanctity  than  the  folly  of  its  object  and  \U  agent  had  taken  away.  When 
peace  was  announced,  he  hastened  to  appear  before  Judge  Hail  in  court, 
and  offered  an  argument  to  show  cause  why  he  should  not  be  punished  for 
contempt. 

The  Judge  refused  to  hear  his  defence.  At  a  subsequent  day  he  attend- 
ed to  receive  sentence,  and  when  the  Judge,  trembling  at  the  murmurs  or 
the  indignant  crowd,  hesitated  to  pronounce  it,  "fear  not,'*  said  the  illustri-- 
ous  prisoner,  waving  the  multitude  to  silence  with  his  hand — "  Fear  not, 
your  honor  :  the  same  arm  which  repelled  the  invasion  of  the  enemy,  shall 
protect  the  deliberations  of  the  court."  The  sublime  humility  of  the  pat- 
riot General  did  not  end  here.  The  ladies  of  New-Orleans  \vhooe  en- 
chantments had  been  saved  from  terror  and  pollution,  not  by  the  habeas 
corpus^  but  by  his  valour,  contributed  a  fund  to  discharge  the  fine.  But 
they  found  he  had  anticipated  them — had  paid  $1000  out  of  that  small  for- 
tune, the  whole  of  which  he  had  pledged  to  the  banks  of  New-Orleans,  to 
raise  money  for  its  defence.  And  when  their  gratitude  would  force  the 
contribution  upon  him,  he  preserved  his  independence,  and  displayed  his 
humanity,  by  requesting  that  the  money  should  be  applied  to  the  relief  of 
the  widows  and  orphans  of  the  brave  citizens  who  had  fallen  in  the  cam- 
paign. Could  Washington  himself  have  shown  greater  respect  to  the  law,  or 
greater  fidelity  to  the  country  ?  It  has  been  said  that  Washington  never 
3 


18 

refused  to  comply  with  civil  process.  But  he  was  a  dictator,  and  who  ev* 
er  dared  to  oppose  the  civil  process  against  his  power  ?  Did  he  not  exe- 
cute deserters  without  even  a  military  trial  ?  Did  he  not  punish  mutineers 
by  decrimination  and  instant  death  ?*  Did  he  not  forage  in  New-Jersey 
as  in  an  enemy's  country — in  each  case,  on  the  ground  of  necessity  ?  He 
did,  and  his  conscience  and  his  country  both  approved  him.  While  Jack- 
son, acting  with  less  rigour,  under  equal  necessity,  is  denounced  by  the 
Richmond  meeting,  as  *'  this  agent  of  illegal  enormities." 

But  Judge  Fromentin  issued  a  habeas  corpus  in  the  case  of  Callava,  and 
as  the  meeting  had  doubtless  two  strings  to  their  bow,  1  will  give  a  few 
words  to  that  subject.  If  the  power  and  the  precept  of  Judge  Hall  were 
defective,  those  of  Fromentin  were  absolutely  good  for  nothing. 

General  Jackson,  as  Governor  of  Florida,  was  invested  with  "  all  the 
powers  and  authority  heretofore  exercised  by  the  Captain  General  and  In- 
tendant  of  Cuba,  and  the  Governors  of  East  and  West  Florida,  within  the 
said  provinces,  respectively.  "The  only  limitations  are  contained  in  a  provi- 
so, reserving  the  power  of  imposing  additional  taxes  and  granting  of  land. 
Now  who  ever  heard  of  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus  being  pushed  into  the  face 
of  a  Spanish  governor  ?  But  in  addition,  it  appears  that  Judge  Froraentin's 
powers  were  as  limited  as  Governor  Jackson's  w  ere  ample.  In  a  letter  from 
the  department  of  State  he  is  told  by  Mr.  Adams,  "  I  am  instructed  by 
the  President  to  inform  you  that  your  commission  as  Judge,  was  intended 
to  apply  to  the  execution  only  of  the  laws  relative  to  the  revenue  and  its 
collection,  and  to  the  slave  trade."  Now  Merced  Vidal  had  represented 
on  oath  to  Mr.  Breckenridge,  the  Alcade  or  Judge  of  Pensacola,  that  the 
testamentary  papers  of  her  father  had  been  taken  from  among  the  public 
records  before  the  cession  of  the  province  ;  that  for  want  of  them  she 
could  not  get  possession  of  the  estate  which  she  inherited,  a  great  part  of 
which  consisted  in  a  sum  of  money  deposited  with  the  house  of  Innerarity 
&  Co.  and  that  they  were  withheld  by  means  of  the  said  Innerarity. 
The  papers  were  found  in  possession  of  Domingo  Sousa,  an  agent  or  sub- 
ordinate of  Colonel  Callava,  a  Spanish  officer,  who  had  proclaimed  himself 
to  be  Governor  of  West  Florida,  and  acting  as  such  had  delivpred  over 
the  provinces  to  Jackson.  When  applied  for,  they  were  refused  to  Gov- 
ernor Jackson's  commissioners,  and  returned  by  Sousa  to  Callava.  Upon 
Callava's  repeated  refusal  to  surrender  them,  he  was  arrested,  the  box  in 
which  the  papers  were  contained,  was  opened  by  commissioners,  acting 
with  a  warrant  of  the  Governor,  the  papers  taken  out,  deposited  in  the 
court  of  Judge  Breckenridge  for  the  benefit  of  the  heirs  of  Vidal,  the  box 
resealed,  and  Callava  discharged.  Now,  here  Governor  Jackson  was 
acting  strictly  within  his  commission,  and  clearly  for  one  of  the  objects  of 
his  appointment,  viz.  "  maintaining  the  inhabitants  in  the  free  enjoyment 
of  their  property."f  Callava,  it  was  stated  on  oath,  declared  his  intention 
was  to  carry  off  the  papers  to  Havana,  where  they  would  have  been  re- 
tained for  a  fee  from  Innerarity — or,  if  returned  to  the  heirs  of  Vidal,  at 
very  heavy  costs.  To  procure  the  discharge  and  faciliate  the  extortion 
and  fraud  of  Callava,  Fromentin,  without  the  petition  and  affidavit  requir- 
ed by  law,  and  without  the  slightest  authority  from  his  commission,  issued 
a  writ  of  habeas  corpus. 

The  Governor  disregarded  the  ridiculous  precept,  and  accomplished  the 
objects  of  justice.  As  soon  as  the  papers  were  secured,  Callava  was  re- 
leased.    But  the  Spanish  minister  and  Callava  insisted  that  the  latter  was 

*  Marshall's  Life  of  Washington,  Vol.  4,  and  page  404—5. 

t  The  words  of  his  comraisaion,  enclosed  by  Mr.  Adams  in  a  despatch  from  the  Secretary 
of  State,  of  the  12th  March,  1821.  See  documents  accompanying  the  President's  Message, 
Dec.  6, 1821. 


19 

shielded  from  the  Governor's  authority  by  his  immunities  as  a  public  func- 
tionary of  Spain.  For  this  plea,  however,  theiie  was  no  cause,  although 
Mr.  Adams'  diplomacy  had  furnished  a  pretext.  His  diplomacy,  like  the 
beauty  of  his  style,  has  been  the  subject  of  unmeasured  praise ;  when  in 
truth  his  blunders  exceed  every  thing  in  the  history  of  international  nego- 
tiation. 

[n  the  same  treaty  he  stipulated  that  with  the  territory,  Spain  was  to 
cede  to  the  United  States  the  fortifications  within  it,  (which  was  pretty 
much  a  thing  of  course,)  but  no  mention  was  made  of  the  ordnance  or  mu- 
nitions with  which  the  fortifications  were  finished.  In  several  instances 
they  exceeded  in  value  the  works  themselves,  and  therefore  the  Spanish 
authorities  availed  themselves  of  the  incompleteness  of  phrase  in  the  trea- 
ty, and  refused  to  give  them  up.* 

The  time  prescribed  for  the  surrender  of  the  province  had  expired,  and 
the  term  fixed  for  the  departure  of  the  Spanish  officers  had  passed.  Gen. 
Jackson  as  Governor  had  possession  on  the  part  of  America,  and  the  pow- 
ers of  Callava,  as  commissioner  under  the  treaty,  had  ceased  with  the  trans- 
fer of  possession ;  but  he  claimed  the  continuance  of  these  powers,  as  the 
Spanish  Minister  did  f«r  him,  upon  the  ground  that  the  article  respecting 
the  fortifications  was  not  yet  executed,  and  that  until  it  was,  his  powers, 
and  with  them,  his  immunities  under  the  law  of  nations,  continued. 

Gen.  Jackson,  with  his  usual  discrimination,  perceived  the  fallacy  of  this 
pretension — showed  that  the  non-execution  of  that  article  had  caused  it  to 
revert  to  the  ordinary  channels  of  negociation  between  the  two  countries, 
and  as  he  had  given  to  Callava  on  taking  possession,  a  verified  list  and  val- 
uation of,  and  an  official  receipt  for,  the  ordnance,  &c.  this  subject  could 
never  again  fall  into  the  hands  of  a  commissioner.  He  therefore  denied 
the  privilege  of  Callava,  and  by  his  authority  as  Governor  of  the  province, 
frustrated  his  mercenary  attempt  to  defraud  the  heirs  of  Nicholas  Maria 
Vidal :  and  defeated  the  ridiculous  and  unauthorized  endeavour  of  Fro- 
mentin  to  favour  this  villanous  project  by  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus. 

When  you  reflect,  gentlemen,  on  your  own  repeated  publication  of  Gen. 
Jackson's  letter  to  Dr.  Coleman,  avowing  his  sentiments  in  favour  of  a  ju- 
dicious tariff,  and  on  your  reference  to  one  not  leis  explicit,  and  on  the  same 
subject,  to  a  member  of  the  Legislature  of  Virginia,  you  will  confess  with 
me  the  difficulty  of  finding  a  decent  denomination  for  the  declaration  of 
the  meeting,  that  General  Jackson  "shrouds  his  opinions  of  the  Tariff  in 
impenetrable  mystery."  Have  either  of  the  signers  of  the  address  applied 
to  General  Jackson  for  a  statement  of  his  opinions  on  this  subject ;  and 
were  he  to  publish  tliem  voluntarily,  would  not  they  all  be  ready  to  repeat 
the  charge,  "  he  mingles  in  person  in  the  contest  waged  for  his  own  ele- 
vation?"^ According  to  their  "  benevolence  and  Christian  charit)r,"  if  si- 
lent, he  is  sinful,  and  guilty  if  he  speaks.  This  charge  is  no  truer  than  the 
story  of  Decatur's  attempt  to  bully  him  in  the  lobby  of  the  Senate,  where, 
in  fact,  they  never  met.  The  reference  of  the  meeting  to  history,  ancient, 
modern,  and  recent,  for  the  purpose  of  vamping  up  their  rotten  cause,  need 
hardly  be  noticed. 

Any  school-boy  in  Richmond  can  tell  them  that  neither  Sylla,  Cromwell, 
nor  Bonaparte  destroyed  the  liberties  of  his  country — ^that  in  every  instance 
demagogues  like  Mr.  Clay  and  his  satellites  and  instruments,  had  done  that 
first ;  and  that  the  usurpers  were  submitted  to  in  preference  to  the  dema- 
gogues. 

*  For  this  fact  see,  in  documents  accompanying  the  President's  Message  of  December  6tb, 
1631,  the  letter  of  Don  Hilario  Rxvks  y  Salmon,  of  the  6th  of  October,  1621,  to  Mr.  Adams. 


20 

The  men  vho  endeavour  to  sustain  and  prolong  the  corrupt  practices  of 
the  present  administration,  are  the  persons  who  are  paving  the  way  for  mil- 
itary despotism.  They  are  undermining  our  institutions,  poisoning  our 
public  spirit  and  disgusting  the  people  with  a  form  of  government  which 
cannot  subsist  without  the  support  of  opinion.  If  histoiy  reflects  true  col- 
ours from  the  past  to  the  present,  the  Richmond  meeting  are  now  "  sow- 
ing the  seeds  of  despotism"  in  this  free  country,  and  endeavouring  to  draw 
their  fellow-citizens  to  a  precipice,  the  brink  of  which  is  adorned  with  the 
flowers  of  flattery,  and  the  bottom  covered  with  the  ruins  of  States.  Plu- 
tarch, speaking  of  the  usurpation  of  Sylla,  says,  "the  people  were  so  cor- 
rupt, and  the  republic  in  so  sickly  a  condition,  that  tyrants  sprung  up  on 
every  side,  nor  is  it  any  wonder  if  Sylla  gained  the  ascendancy  at  a  time 
when  such  wretches  as  Glaucias  and  Saturninus  expelled  such  men  as  Me- 
tellus,"  who  was  denounced  like  General  Jackson  as  a  Militan/  Chieftain. 
The  tyrany  of  the  long  parliament  had  made  its  rule  and  its  members  so 
odious,  that  Cromwell  kicked  them  out  of  their  seats  without  "  the  least 
opposition." 

Hume  relates  this  fact,  and  accounts  for  it  by  stating,  that  its  "  dissolu- 
tion was  ardently  desired  by  the  people,  as  its  commencement  had  been." 
Who  can  say  that  France  was  free,  when  Bonaparte  effected  the  revolu- 
tion of  the  eighteenth  of  Brumaire?  Had  not  the  raging  cruelty  of  Ma- 
rat, of  Danton,  of  Robespierre,  been  slacked  in  the  best  blood  of  France — 
her  noble  patriots,  her  lovely  females,  the  grace  and  chivalry  of  the  land  ? 
And  were  not  the  corruption  and  imbecility  of  their  Directory,  the  proxi- 
mate causes  of  Bonaparte's  success  ? — causes  which  made  his  iron  rule  re- 
lief to  the  French  people  ?  Or  did  either  of  these  men  resign  command, 
and  retire  to  private  life  for  ten  years  ?  But  even  if  Lucius  Cornelius 
Sylla  had  destroyed  the  liberty  of  Rome,  would  that  be  any^sort  of  an  ob- 
jection to  the  election  of  Andrew  Jackson  ?  The  characte'rs  of  the  men 
are  as  different  as  their  ages  and  countries.  Both  exhibited  great  military 
talents,  but  the  Roman,  great,  moral,  and  political  vices.  Shall  we  never 
respect  a  parson,  because  Dr.  Dodd  was  hung  for  forgery  ;  or  a  bishop, 
because  bishop  Jocelyn  was  banished  for  an  unnatural  crime  ?  What 
would  their  reverend  delegate.  Dr.  Kerr,  say,  if  the  Richmond  meeting 
were  to  direct  such  logic  against  him  ?  And  yet  the  analogy  is  closer  be- 
tween an  American  and  an  English  priest,  than  between  an  ancient  and 
a  modern  general. 

The  Richmond  meeting  appear  to  conceive,  that  the  qualifications  of 
Mr.  Adams  for  the  Presidency  are  undeniable ;  because  he  has  been  long 
in  public  life,  and  has  great  practice  in  diplomacy — and  they  denounce 
General  Jackson,  as  incompetent  and  dangerous.  But  there  are  such  things 
as  age  without  experience,  and  practice  without  perfection.  Some  men 
'  grow  old  in  bad  habits  of  thought—  inveterate  in  eccentricities — obstinate 
in  errors.  This  happens  to  those  who  are  conceited  ;  w^o  have  acquired 
a  little  knowledge,  and  have  credit  for  a  great  deal ;  who  have  not  mixed 
in  the  strife  and  bustle  of  the  world,  and  felt  the  springs  by  which  it  is  ac- 
tuated. It  is  the  case  with  Mr.  Adams.  He  knows  something  of  the  man 
in  the  moon,  but  nothing  of  the  men  on  the  earth.  He  thought  that  the 
appointment  of  James  Barbour  would  conciliate  Virginia — when  the  small- 
est tact,  or  even  the  power  of  common  observation,  would  have  convinced 
him  that  no  man  of  that  state  had  less  influence  than  Mr.  Barbour — and 
that  the  very  idea  of  flattermg  Virginia  by  such  a  placebo,  was  a  deep  of- 
fence to  her  pride.  But  even  if  Mr.  Adams  were — what  he  is  not,  never 
was,  and  never  will  be — an  able  diplomatist  and  an  elegant  writer,  would  that 
prove  him  well  qualified  for  the  office  of  President  ?    Did  any  one  ever 


21 

think  of  Talleyrand  as  an  able  chief  magistrate — or  consider  General 
Washington  a  skillful  diplomatist  ?  The  qualities  which  compose  the  char- 
acter of  Jackson,  on  the  one  hand,  and  which  posterity  will  know  him  by, 
are  a  vigorous  judgment — a  deep  insight  into  character — a  generous  sen- 
sibility to  merit — a  prompt  indignation  at  vice — a  frank  temper — a  free 
hand,  and  a  valliant  heart.  The  rapidity  and  strengtli  of  his  reasoning  fa- 
culty, and  the  fervour  of  all  his  conceptions,  constitute  him  decidedly  a 
man  of  genius,  and  give  him  a  force  of  character  which  all  feel  who  ap- 
proach him.  To  such  a  mind,  so  prompt,  so  active,  so  enterprising,  age  has 
indeed  given  experience,  and  reflection  brpught  wisdom. 

That  he  may  be  less  odious  to  the  Richmond  meeting,  I  will  not  men- 
tion the  moral  qualities  that  distinguish  him  from  their  idol,  Mr.  Clay — his 
correct  habits,  simple  tastes,  upright  principles,  and  lofty  honor.  But  I 
will  mention  that  he  too  has  been  an  attorney,  and  even  a  judge — that  he 
stood  first  at  the  bar  of  his  state  as  a  criminal  lawyer,  and  high  on  its  bench 
as  an  equity  judge — and  that  in  the  society  around  him,  he  has  maintained 
an  intellectual  superiority  as  eminent,  and  a  social  influence  as  endearing, 
as  Judge  Marshall  enjoys  in  Richmond.  Think  then  of  his  great  exploits, 
his  heroic  self-denial,  his  sensitive  patriotism,  his  victorious  courtesy  f  and, 
to  raise  your  conception  still  higher,  gentlemen,  compare  him  with  the 
judges  and  the  attornies  who  modestly  pronounce  him  incompetent,  and 
say  whether  the  people  of  Virginia  can  hesitate  to  prefer  him  to  Mr.  Ad- 
ams. If  indeed  they  should  hesitate ;  if  a  malignant  fate  shall  ordain  suc- 
cess to  the  counsels  and  machinations  of  the  Richmond  meeting,  shall  de- 
cree that  the  great  state,  which  revolted  from  the  honest  aristocracy  of  the 
father,  must  submit  to  the  perfidious  despotism  of  the  son  ;  then  may  George 
the  4th  hope  to  replace  the  jewel  which  was  plucked  by  our  ancestors  from 
the  British  crown ;  and  expect  to  see  the  Cabells,  the  Stanards,  the  Talia- 
ferros,  and  the  Calls,  lay  prostrate  at  his  feet,  that  liberty  which  the  Wash- 
ingtons  the  Henrys,  the  Randolphs,  and  the  Lees,  wrested  from  the  grasp 
of  his  father. 

JEFFERSON. 


*  The  correspondence  between  Gen.  Jackson  and  the  British  commanders,  after  the  battle 
of  the  8th,  is  well  worth  reading.  It  shows  that  the  American  General  was  the  conqueror  of 
his  foes,  even  in  humanity  and  politeness.  On  the  27th  February,  Gen.  Lambert  writes,  "  on 
the  subject  of  your  concluding  paragraph,  I  have  only  to  remirk,  that  honourable  and  feeling 
conduct,  which  has  characterized  every  transaction  in  which  I  have  had  the  honour  to  be  con- 
cerned with  you :"  and  General  Keene  expresses  '  his  thanks  for  the  kindness  he  has  receiv- 
ed from  Gen.  Jackson,  through  the  medium  of  Colonel  Livingston." 


[From  the  Nashville  Republican.] 

To  the  Editors  of  the  Richmond  Enquirer. 

Gentlemen — Since  my  last  communication,  I  have  read  the  address  re- 
ported by  Mr.  Johnson  to  the  Adams  convention  in  Richmond,  and  I  find  it 
to  be  a  fabric  of  stimulated  fears  raised  on  a  foundation  of  antiquated  slan- 
ders. Void  of  facts,  destitute  of  truth,  and  patched  up  with  theological  zeal 
and  forensic  stratagem.  It  reminds  me  of  the  men  of  straw,  dressed  in  cast 
off  hats  and  coats,and  stationed  as  scare  crows  in  the  corn-fields  of  Virginia. 
Decked  in  the  pap-stained  garments  of  Binns,  Gales,  and  Hammond,  it  is 
calculated  to  deter  very  close  examination,  but  as  it  is  avowedly  the  work 
of  Mr.  Johnson,  and  looked  on  by  him  with  the  eyes  of  Pygmalion,  I  risk 
the  displeasure  of  fastidious  readers  and  undertake  to  expose  it. 

But  do  not  the  proceedings  of  this  convention  give  birth  to  a  reflection 
too  solemn  to  be  unuttered — that  in  the  ruling  state  of  this  confederacy,  a 
commonwealth  teeming  with  patriotism,  and  rich  in  renown,  which,  "  when 
asked  for  her  jewels,  still  points  to  her  sons" — men  of  high  station  and  re- 
pute should  be  found,  concerting  by  an  organized  effort  the  renovation  of 
exploded  falsehoods,  in  order  to  tarnish  the  fame  ofa  private  citizen,  whose 
great  exploits  and  popular  virtues  make  him  formidable  to  a  weak  and  cor- 
rupt administration  ?     And  does  it  not  add  to  the  gloom  of  this  reflection, 
that  the  holy  places  of  prayer  and  the  exalted  tribunals  of  justice,  should 
furnish  recruits  to  this  conspiracy  against  the  character  of  a  venerable 
patriot,  and  the  liberty  of  a  youthful  republic  ?    But  let  not  the  lover  of 
freedom — let  not  the  votaries  of  truth  despair — let  not  the  friends  of  the 
country  tremble.    The  People  are  not  only  the  fountain  of  political  pow- 
er, but  of  political  hope.     Guarded  by  the  press,  which,  in  spite  of  the 
expensive  efforts  of  Mr.  Clay  to  seduce  or  intimidate  it,  is  yet  free,  the  in- 
stitutions of  our  country  will  find  strength  and  perpetuity  against  the  ma- 
chinations of  the  few,  in  the  pure  love  of  freedom  which  animates  the  great 
body  of  the  nation.     To  their  sure  and  sagacious  patriotism,  it  is  perhaps 
fortunate  that  frequent  appeals  are  necessary.     Even  the  labours  of  the 
Richmond  convention  may  in  this  way  prove  useful,  as  the  serpents  which 
Hercules  strangled  in  his  cradle,  may  be  supposed  to  have  invigorated  him 
for  the  greater  task  of  cleansing  the  Augean  stable.     There  is  certainly 
much  to  admire  in  the  rhetoric  and  the  leason  of  Mr.  Johnson,  in  founding 
a  claim  for  the  convention  to  peculiar  sincerity  and  particular  attention,  up- 
on the  remarkable  fact  of  the  month  of  January  (when  they  chose  to  assem- 
ble) being  an  "  inclement  season  !"     But  he  might  have  mentioned  a  much 
more  extraordinary  circumstance,  and  counted  on  the  attraction  of  more 
general  notice.     He  might  have  told  the  people  of  Virginia  that  he  and 
his  compatriots  were  careful  to  select  the  day  which  had  been  consecrated 
by  more  than  half  the  nation  to  the  honor  of  General  Jackson  and  the  pub- 
lic gratitude — the  day  on  which  the  altars  of  freemen  burn  with  incense 
and  their  hearts  with  joy,  for  the  more  signal  and  embittered  opportunity 
of  pouring  out  upon  him  a  collected  torrent  of  abuse.    That  while  the 
people  of  Louisiana  were  hailing  him  as  their  saviour,  the  legislature  as 
their  deliverer,  the  ladies  as  their  protecter,  the  children  as  their  guardian, 
and  the  patriach^  as  his  friend,  they  had  predetermined  to  be  employed 
in  denouncing  him  in  the  name  of  that  very  legislature  and  that  very  peo- 
ple, as  the  slave  of  ignoble  passions,  the  tyrant  of  Louisiana,  the  enemy  of 

*  Fatber  Antoine 


23 

the  people  he  saved,  and  the  foe  of  that  liberty  which  he  defended.  This 
would  have  constituted  as  affective  an  appeal  to  public  notice  as  the  shiv- 
ering allusion  to  a  January  journey. 

This  frigid  exordium  gives  place  to  a  scale  of  their  opinions  respecting 
Mi.  Adams,  tenderly  graduated  from  a  shade  of  modest  objection  to  the 
florid  glow  of  courtly  adulation,  where  the  manly  tone  for  which  Chapman 
Johnson  once  had  credit  through  Virginia,  is  artfully  lost  in  the  pathetic  and 
pensioned  phrases  of  the  Whig  ;  and  for  a  harsh  and  unqualified  avowal  of 
their  hostility  to  General  Jackson.  "  Most  of  us,"  say  they,  "  approve  the 
general  course  of  the  administration,  have  confidence  in  its  virtue^  its  pat' 
riotism,  its  wisdom,  and  see  nothing  to  condemn  in  the  President's  inter- 
pretation of  the  federal  constitution."  "  The  measures  which  some  disap- 
prove in  the  present  administration,  none  could  hope  to  see  amended  un- 
der that  of  General  Jackson."  "The  constitution  which  we  would  pre- 
serve from  the  too  liberal  interpretation  of  Mr.  Adams,  we  would  yet  more 
zealously  defend  against  the  destroying  hand  of  his  rival." 

With  these  fair  and  well  digested  sentiments,  Mr.  Johnson  proceeds  to 
controvert  the  accuracy  of  the  general  belief  that  Jackson  is  the  favourite 
of  the  people  ;  in  doing  which,  he  falls  into  what  logicians  call  a  vicious  cir- 
cle,  forgeting  evidently  that  the  best  possible  proof  of  that  fact,  is  the  gen- 
eral belief  of  it.  And  it  happens  accordingly  that  the  only  reasonable 
part  of  his  argument  on  this  point,  is  what  he  doubtless  thought  no  argu- 
ment at  all — viz.  a  positive  denial  of  it.  He  next  endeavors  to  rebut  the 
objections  which  have  so  widely  prevailed  and  been  so  completely  establish- 
ed to  the  last  election  by  misrepresenting  them,  as  black  legs  give  them- 
selves a  command  over  the  cards  by  stocking  them. — "  The  friends  of 
General  Jackson,"  he  asserts,  "  insist  that  his  plurality  of  votes  at  the  last 
election,  proved  him  to  be  the  choice  of  the  nation  "  Now,  the  fact  is,  the 
friends  of  General  Jackson  have  done  no  such  thing.  They  contended 
and  do  now  contend,  that  his  plurality  of  votes,  placing  him  nearer  to  the 
point  of  popular  preference,  made  decisive  by  the  constitution,  than  either 
of  his  competitors,  it  was  the  duty  of  the  representatives  of  the  people, 
when  they  came  to  estim  ite  the  comparative  claims  of  the  candidates,  to 
allow  this  circumstance  great  weight,  and  make  it  overbalance  strong  pre- 
ferences for  his  rivals,  or  strong  prepossessions  against  himself. — They 
further  maintained  that  when  the  right  of  choice  was  transferred  from  elec- 
tors appointed  by  the  people,  to  electors  clele;irated  by  the  states,  a  fact 
which  had  not  arisen  in  the  first  process,  should  have  had  a  fair  operation 
in  the  second  — viz.  that  in  several  of  the  western  states,  where  Jackson 
was  second  to  Clay  before  the  people,  he  became  first  as  soon  as  Clay  was 
withdrawn.  Mr.  Johnson  describes  the  primary  election  as  popular  and 
the  secondary  as  federal ;  and  he  must  admit  that  the  moment  which  advan- 
ced the  process  from  the  primary  to  the  secondary  stage,  expunged  the 
name  of  Mr.  Clay  from  the  list  of  candidates,  and  left  the  popular  will  of 
those  States  to  operate  in  favor  of  Jackson,  Adams  or  Crawford.  Their 
delegations  were  bound  to  give  a  genuine  expression  of  that  will,  and  to 
gather  it  from  such  facts  as  were  then  before  them.  They  had  to  deter- 
mine who  are  the  most  popular  in  their  respective  States,  Jackson  Adams 
or  Crawford.  If  the  Kentucky  delegation  looked  to  their  polls,  they  found 
that  the  same  evidence  which  proved  Mr.  Clay  to  stand  before  General 
Jackson  in  the  popularity  of  Kentucky,  proved  General  Jackson  to  stand 
before  Mr.  Adams  or  Mr.  Crawford.  They  knew  that  some  of  their  own 
body  preferred  him  even  to  Mr.  Clay.  That  a  large  majority  of  the  Leg- 
islature of  Kentucky  were  in  favor  of  his  election,  and  that  a  general  im- 
pression, resting  on  a  mass  of  undoubted  facts  existed,  that  h« -was  next  to 
Mr.  Clay  in  the  estimation  of  the  western  people. 


24 

These  were  the  only  facts  upon  which  they  could  found  a  faithful  course 
of  action  at  the  time,  and  they  could  leave  no  doubt  that  if  they  made  the 
will  of  the  people  the  rule  of  their  conduct,  they  should  vote  for  General 
Jackson.  The  course  of  events  has  involved  others  which  confirm  that 
conclusion.  The  elections  in  Kentucky,  Missouri  and  Illinois,  have  prov- 
ed incontestibly  what  Mr.  Johnson  earnestly  denies  that  in  the  last  Presi- 
dential election,  "  the  will  of  the  people  was  improperly  disappointed  by 
their  representatives."  That  is,  if  the  people  who  elected  Messrs.  Daniel, 
Yancey,  Chilton,  Lyon,  Duncan  and  Bates,  to  the  present  Congress,  know 
their  own  will  as  well  as  Mr.  Johnson  does. 

The  charge  of  corruption,  which  Mr.  Clay  fixed  upon  himself  and  his 
flexible  friends  at  the  last  election — under  which  some  of  them  pine  in 
painful  obscurity,  and  he  himself  writhes  in  splendid  disgrace — .Vlr.  John- 
eon  affirms,  was  met  by  Mr.  Clay  as  soon  as  it  was  preferred,  and  abandon- 
ed by  its  supporters  when  they  were  challenged  for  proof. — This  the  rea- 
der will  at  once  recognise  as  the  empty  and  incautious  language  of  Mr. 
Clay  himself,  on  those  occasions  upon  which  he  has  been  permitted  to  ex- 
change his  cheap  and  gascon  eloquence,  for  the  wine  and  mutton  of  his 
entertainers.  Its  having  been  adopted  by  a  set  of  Virginia  politicians, 
removes  those  objections  which  occur  to  giving  it  even  a  brief  considera- 
tion. 

It  is  to  be  observed  that  the  charge  of  Mr.  Kremer  was  prospective,  im- 
ported that  Mr.  Clay  and  his  friends  ivould  vote  for  Mr.  Adams,  and  that 
in  consideration  thereof,  Mr.  Clay  was  to  be  appointed  Secretary  of 
State.  As  soon  as  this  charge  was  avowed  by  Mr.  Kremer,  Mr.  Clay  ap- 
pealed to  the  House  of  Representatives  for  a  solemn  investigation  of  it,  be- 
fore the  election — before  either  of  the  overt  acts  prospectively  charged 
by  Kremer  could  have  occuied.  Mr.  Clay  could  not  vote  for  Mr.  Adams, 
nor  Mr.  Adams  appoint  Mr.  Clay,  before  the  election.  Did  it  argue  any 
thing  like  innocence  in  Mr.  Clay  to  defy  Mr.  Kremer  to  prove  the  charge, 
at  a  time  when  its  consummation,  its  only  substantial  proof  had  not  been 
eifected  ;  and  when  it  was  in  tlie  power  of  Mr.  Clay  himself  to  disappoint 
the  most  conclusive  evidence  of  intention  that  could  be  exhibited,  by  de- 
clining to  give  the  venal  vote,  and  to  receive  the  mercenary  appointment. 
The  fact  that  he  did  challenge  an  investigation  at  a  time  when  it  was  im- 
possible to  convict  him,  and  has  declined  one  since  it  was  possible,  is 
proof  sufficient,  if  other  proof  did  not  abound,  that  the  motive  of  venality 
alleged  against  him  by  Mr.  Kremer  really  existed.*     Let  those  who  may 

*  In  a  case  like  Mr.  Clay's  where  the  judgment  is  to  operate  on  the  concealed  motives  of 
the  mind,  it  would  appear  that  the  best  evidence  is  to  be  derived  from  the  jjistificatory  declar- 
ations of  the  accused  person.  All  other  circumstaices  have  but  a  probable  connection  with 
his  motives,  these  have  a  necessary  one.  The  former  are  directed  at  them,  the  latter  proceed 
from  them  ;  and  wherever  they  conflict  with  truth,  they  shew  to  demonstration,  a  conscious- 
ness of  guilt,  and  an  effort  to  conceal  it.  'I'o  apply  this  rule — in  his  circular  to  his  con- 
stituents, of  March,  '825,  Ms  first  real  attempt  at  justification,  he  says:  "  I  found  myself 
transformed  from  a  candidate  before  tife  people,  to  an  elector  for  the  people.  I  deliberately 
examined  the  duties  incident  to  this  new  attitude,  and  weighed  all  the  facts  before  me,  upon 
which  my  judgment  was  to  be  formed  or  reviewed,  ff  the  eagerness  of  any  of  the  heaied 
partisans  of  the  respective  candidates  suggested  a  tirdiness  in  the  declaration  of  my  inten- 
tions, believed  that  the  new  relation  in  which  I  wa>  placed  to  the  subject,  imposed  on  me  an 
obligation  to  pay  some  re-pecl  to  dt^licacy  :ind  decorum.''  Mere  he  declares  to  his  constitu- 
ents that  he  was  tardy  in  the  declaration  of  his  intentions,  after  he  became  transformed  into 
an  (Hlector  for  the  people,  both  because  he  was  beset  by  heated  pa  tisans,  and  bec.Tis*"  his  new 
relation  lo  the  election  imposed  on  him  obligations  of  delicacy  and  decorum  But  in  his  pamph- 
let, his  last,  or  rather,  his  latest  atempt  at  justification,  he  says,  (p.  18.)  "Mr.  Bonliiiuy, 
Senator  from  Louisiana,  bore  to  me  the  first  .Kthentic  information  which  I  received  otthe 
vote  of  Louisiana,  and  consequently  of  my  exclusion  from  the  house.  And  yet  in  our  first 
interview,  in  answer  to  an  inquiry  which  he  made,  I  t<ild  him  without  hesitation,  that  I  should 
vote  for  Mr.  Adams  in  preference  to  General  Ja<  kson."  Was  this  t-^rdiness  delicacy  or  de- 
corum  .>  In  the  very  "  first  interview,"  and  on  the  very  first  inquiry,  after  he  "  found  himself, 
placed  in  the  new  attitude  of  elector  for  the  people,"  so  far  from  being  tardy,  delir -ite  or  decorous, 
on  the  subject,  he  avows  his  intentions  "  to  vote  for  Mr.  Adams  in  preference  to  Gen.  Jackson 


25 

be  so  far  beguiled  by  the  sophistry  of  Mr.  Clay  and  his  parasites  as  to  hope 
for  any  relief  to  his  reputation  from  Mr.  Kremer's  failure  to  convict  him, 
suppose  for  a  moment  that  Paulding,  Williams  and  Van  Wart,  who  cap- 
tured Andre  and  led  to  the  detection  of  Arnold's  treason,  had  only  charg- 
ed him  with  intendins;  to  deliver  up  West  Point  for  a  lucrative  appoint- 
ment in  the  British  Army.  Suppose  Arnold  had  then  demanded  an  inves- 
tigation of  this  charge  before  a  military  tribunal,  and  had  challenged  its 
supporters  to  the  proof.  Suppose  these  patriots  had  failed,  as  they  must 
have  done,  to  convict  hira — that  he  had  then  held  the  treasonable  corres- 
pondence with  Sir  H.  Clinton  and  received  the  lucrative  appointment — 
would  it  be  possible  to  extract  any  proof  of  his  innocence  from  the  result 
of  the  investigation  ?  Could  any  friend  of  his,  attempt  such  an  imposition 
on  the  common  sense  of  mankind  ;  or  would  the  most  sceptical  historiah 
consider  this  circumstance  as  diminishing  by  a  grain  of  doubt  the  mass  of 
evidence  against  him  ?  The  parrellelism  of  these  cases  cannot  be  denied  ; 
and  the  only  historical  variation  between  them  is  that  Arnold's  emmissary 
was  apprehended,  and  that  Clay's  has  not  been.  How  cruelly  absurd 
then  is  it,  for  the  adherents  of  the  Secretary  of  State  to  recur  to  this 
mock  investigation  in  chanting  his  praise ;  and  how  desperate  must  be  the 
condition  of  that  man's  character,  vt^hich,  when  criminated  by  the  circum- 
stances of  his  own  conduct,  can  be  vindicated  only  by  a  mode  of  justifica- 
tion, which  leads  directly  to  the  demonstration  of  his  guilt  ?  The  author 
of  the  address  adds  to  this  absurdity,  another  which,  as  he  is  an  expert 
and  approved  attorney,  is  as  remarkable  as  it  is  obvious.  He  asserts  that 
General  Jackson  has  given  the  sanction  of  his  name  to  the  charge  of  cor- 
ruption under  which  the  Secretary  labours.  It  will  be  remembered  that 
Mr.  Clay  himself  has  eagerly  assumed  this  position.  But  it  is  in  direct  op- 
position to  truth.  Gen.  Jackson  has  never  adopted  the  charge  or  given  it 
the  sanction  of  his  name.  He  has  only  testified  to  a  fact  having  connec- 
tion with  it,  and  instead  of  being  a  prosecutor,  he  is  a  witness — a  distinc- 
tion, to  which  no  ordinary  intemperance  of  zeal  could  have  blinded  Mr. 
Johnson. 

These  abortive  attempts  to  justify  the  last  election  and  to  criminate  all 
who  were  offended  by  its  impurity,  are  preliminary  to  a  formal  vindication 
of  the  conduct  and  doctrines  of  the  President,  and  to  a  studied  and  detailed 
misrepresentation  of  every  feature  in  General  Jackson's  character,  and 
every  act  of  his  ife.  In  conformity  with  this  division  of  h'S  subject,  Mr. 
Johnson  imputes  the  general  dissatisfaction  which  succeeded  the  first  mes- 
sage of  Mr.  Adams  "  to  unwarrantable  inferences  "  drawn  from  some  of 
his  expressions  by  the  "  factious  opposition :" — thus,  notwithstanding  his 
loyal  hatred  of  military  chieftains,  adopting  the  old  military  maxim  of  carry- 
ing the  war  into  the  enemy's  country.     The  phrase  "  palsied  by  the  will  of 

Now  suppose  a  man  to  come  to  his  death  by  being  poisoned  with  arsenic  5  and  that  a  sus- 
pected person  when  arraigned  for  the  murder,  should,  upon  his  first  examination  affirm, 
that  the  arsenic  which  he  bought  was  .ill  used  in  poisoning  rats,  and  on  his  second,  that  he  had 
bought  no  arsenic  at  all,  would  not  his  contradiction  rivet  on  the  minds  of  the  jury  a  convie- 
lion  of  his  guilt?  And  yet  it  is  not  so  flagrant  as  that  of  Mr.  Clay— for  one  branch  of  his  is 
carried  out  into  a  camplamt  against  "  heated  partisans,"  and  into  a  claim  to  ihe  refinement  of 
"  delicacy  and  decorum."  Again.— He  insists  (p  18.)  that  on  the  15th  Dec.  when  the  vote  of- 
Louisiana  and  his  consequent  exclusion  from  the  House,  were  only  conjectured  from  report, 
not  authentically  known,  and  of  course  when  he  was  but  half  "  transformed  into  an  elector 
for  the  people,  he  told  Mr  James  Barbour,  who  had  himself  just  been  transformed  from  an 
"  eager  partisan  "  of  Mr.  Crawford,  to  an  "  eager  partisan  of  At.  Adams,  that  "  in  the  event 
of  the  contest  being  narrowed  down  to  Mr.  Adams  and  General  Jackson,  he  was  in  favor  of 
Mr.  Adams."  And  to  prove  still  f.irther  his  "  tardiness,"  "  delicacy  and  decorum,"  he  avers 
(pp.  19,  20.)  that  immediately  after  the  20th  of  Dec  when  Mr.  IJouligny  gave  him  the  first 
authentic  information  of  his  exclusion  from  the  House,  and  consequent  transformation  into 
'•  an  elector  for  the  people,"  he  told  General  La  Fayette  "that  he  had  concluded  to  vote  for 
Mr.  Adams."  These  contradictions  carry  the  evidence  against  JUim  as  far  aa  the  force  of  moral 
proof  can  go. 


26 

our  constituents,"  he  declares,  "  has  been  torne  from  its  context,  misinter- 
preted ;  and  used  as  the  authority  upon  which  the  President  is  charged 
with  the  heresy,  that  the  representative  owes  no  obligation  to  the  will  of 
his  constituents."  The  spirit  of  a  recent  convert  seems  here  to  animate 
the  languid  formality  of  Mr.  Johnson's  style,  and  there  is  something  soft 
if  not  tender,  in  his  lament,  over  the  fate  of  this  sxquisite  figure  of  Mr. 
Adams. — 

*'  Oh,  hadst  thou  cruel  !  been  content  to  seize, 
Hairs  less  in  sight,  or  any  hairs  but  these." 

But  Mr.  Johnson  has  evidently  nothing  of  poetry  in  his  soul,  but  the  fiction, 
and  his  sorrow  will  accordingly  be  found  to  be  more  causeless  than  that 
of  Belinda.  In  that  paragraph  of  the  message  which  begins,  "  The  spirit 
of  improvement  is  abroad  upon  the  earth,"  the  representatives  of  the  nation 
are  told  that  Liberty  is  power  ;  that  the  nation  blessed  with  the  largest 
portion  of  liberty,"  (intimating  his  inbred  opinion  that  even  the  freest  na- 
tion ought  to  be  under  a  wholesome  reservation  of  liberty  by  their  rulers,) 
"  must  in  pro})ortion  to  its  numbers,  be  the  most  powerful  nation  upon 
earth  ;  and  that  the  tenure  of  power  by  man,  is,  in  the  moral  purposes  of 
the  creator,  upon  condition  that  it  shall  be  exercised  to  ends  of  beneficence, 
to  improve  the  condition  of  himself  and  his  fellow  men.  While  foreign 
nations,  less  blessed  with  that  freedom  which  is  power,  than  ourselves,  are 
advancing  with  gigantic  strides  in  the  career  of  public  improvement,  were 
we  to  slumber  in  indolence,  fold  up  our  arms,  and  proclaim  to  the  world, 
that  we  are  palsied  by  the  will  of  our  constituents,  would  it  not  be  to 
cast  away  the  bounties  of  Providence  and  doom  ourselves  to  perpetual  in- 
feriority ?"  It  must  be  confessed  that  this  passage,  which  would  be  as 
well  placed  on  a  page  of  Newton's  Principia,  as  in  a  President's  message, 
is  sufficiently  tumid  and  obscure,  and  not  be  charged  with  any  very  direct 
signification.  But  its  import  when  carefully  interpreted,  certainly  amounts 
to  this.  There  are  two  rules  of  political  action  fo^  out  government — one^ 
derived^  from  that  condition^  [jure  divino)  which  i^  the  execution  of  his  moral 
purposes  the  creator  attaches  to  the  tenure  of  power  and  the  possession  of 
liberty  which  is  power ^  by  man.  7  he  other,  that  which  tminatesfrom  the  will 
of  the  p:ople.  Under  the  operation  oj  the  first  rule,  foreign  nations  evjoy- 
infr  less  of"  that  liberty  which  is  power,  than  ourselves,  arid  consequently  less 
energetically  impressed  by  the  condition  attached  by  the  creator,  to  its  tenure, 
are  advancing  with  gigantic  strides,  in  the  career  of  public  improvement  and 
exerting  their  power  to  "  ends  of  beneficence,'*^  in  conformity  with  the  moral 
purposes  of  our  creator.  If  we  do  not  also  advance  "  ivith  gigantic  strides 
in  the  career  of  public  improvement — if  we  forbear  to  exert  our  power  "  to 
ends  of  beneficence,^^  we  shnll  "  cast  away  the  bounties  of  Providence  and  doom 
ourselves  to  perpetual  inferiority  to  foreign  nations.'''*  Shall  revolt  from  the 
great  rule  which  is  imposed  by  the  creator  upon  free  nations,  and  shall  in 
fact  proclaim  to  the  ivorld  that  we  are  reduced  by  the  will  of  our  constituents, 
to  a  political  impotence  a3  feeble  and  uncouth  as  the  muscular  action  of  a 
palsied  frame. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  not  only  are  the  two  rules  here  proposed,  but 
that  the  power  of  contrast,  and  the  effect  of  comparison  are  exerted  to 
the  best  of  Mr.  Adams'  ability  to  induce  Congress  to  prefer  the  first  and 
to  despise  the  second.  But  in  case  Mr.  Johnson  should  be  disposed  to  dis- 
pute this  point,  it  may  be  well  to  add  a  little  more  of  the  precious  context 
from  which  this  "  morsel  for  a  King"  has  been  torn  by  the  ruthless  republi- 
cans. Mr.  Adams  proceeds — "In  the  course  of  the  year  now  drawing  to 
its  close  we  have  beheld,  under  the  auspices  and  at  the  expense  of  one 
State  of  this  Union,  a  new  university  unfolding  its  portals  to  the  sons  of 
science,  and  holding  up  the  torch  of  human  improvement  to  eyes  that  seek 


27 

the  light.  We  have  seen  under  the  persevering  and  enlightened  enter- 
prise of  another  state,  the  waters  of  our  western  lakes  mingled  with  those 
of  the  ocean.  If  undertakings  like  these  have  been  accomplished,  in  the 
compass  of  a  few  years,  by  the  authority  of  single  members  of  our  con- 
federation, can  we,  the  representative  authorities  of  the  whole  union,  fall 
behind  our  fellow  servants  in  the  exercise  of  the  trust  committed  to 
us  for  the  benefit  of  our  common  sovereign,  by  the  accomplishment  of 
works  important  to  the  whole,  and  to  which  neither  the  authority  nor  the 
resources  of  any  one  state  can  be  adequate.'*'  Here  evidently  another 
standard  of  power  is  recommended  to  the  Congress,  hardly  less  indefinite 
and  alarming  than  the  former.  It  is  urged  that  inasmuch  as  the  authority 
and  resources  of  Virginia  and  New  York,  have  been  adequate  to  the 
erection  of  a  new  University,  and  the  completion  of  the  Grand  Canal,  it  is 
the  duty  of  the  representative  authorities  of  the  whole  union  to  exercise 
power  and  resources  sufficient  for  the  construe  tion  of  works  and  the  ex- 
pansion of  improvement,  as  much  beyond  these  particular  enterprises  as 
the  resources  of  the  whole  union  exceed  those  of  either  of  these  states. 
And  the  authority  of  the  general  government,  instead  of  being  measuied 
by  the  grants  and  reservations  of  the  constitution,  is  to  be  regulated  by 
the  inverse  proportion  which  the  whole  confederacy  bears  to  a  particular 
state.  Thus  according  to  Mr.  Adams  the  moral  condition  of  our  exis- 
tence, and  the  physical  circumstance  of  our  union,  conspire  to  absolve  the 
representative  from  obedience  to  the  will  of  his  constituents.  And  it  can- 
not fail  to  be  perceived,  that  under  his  florid  and  umbrageous  diction,  lurks 
the  offensive  idea  of  patronizing  the  people  and  improving  the  states, 
which  all  men  with  a  spark  of  freedom  in  their  souls  must  abhor,  as 
strenuously  as  nature  does  a  vacaum.  With  equal  zeal  and  success  it  is 
attempted  to  justify  the  terms  of  infinite  assumption  and  imperious  menace 
with  which  Mr.  Adams  reprehended  certain  proceedings  of  the  state  of 
Georgia.  I  have  not  before  me  that  remarkable  communication,  but  I  am 
willing  to  take  Mr.  Johnson's  extenuated  statement  of  its  substance,  in 
order  to  prove  how  richly  both  its  author  and  its  advocate  deserve  the  rep- 
robation of  an  enlightened  people.  The  latter  says  "  he  made  an  obvious 
though  not  an  avowed  referance  to  his  oath  of  office,  as  imposing  an  ob- 
ligation above  all  human  law."  Now  this  is  either  an  intellectual  absurdity 
or  a  political  sin.  The  constitution  of  the  United  States,  denominated  by 
Mr.  Johnson  himself,  "  the  supreme  law  of  the  land"  prescribes  certain 
duties  for  the  President,  among  which  is  that  of  taking  the  oath  of  office. 
To  say  that  the  performance  of  this  one  duty  imposes  on  the  President  an 
obligation  above  the  supreme  law  of  the  land,  and  the  very  law  which 
prescribes  it,  is  to  say  that  the  creature  is  above  the  creator  ;  and  that  the 
sanction  of  a  religious  ceremony  to  the  obligation  of  the  President  to  ^re- 
serve,  protect  and  defend  the  constitution,  endows  him  with  a  right  to  violate 
his  oath  and  to  destroy  the  constitution.  Again — to  say  that  his  oath  of  office 
imposes  an  obligation  above  the  supreme  law,  or  requires  at  his  hand  the 
performance  of  other  duties,  than  those  prescribed  by  the  constitution,  is 
avowing  at  once  that  this  is  not  a  government  of  laws,  and  that  the  execu- 
tive branch  is  above  the  control  of  the  constitution.  In  the  first  sense, 
the  expression  is  absurd,  in  the  second  criminal,  in  both  sufficiently  offen- 
sive, and  to  be  fair  with  Mr.  Johnson,  he  is  welcome  to  ascribe  it  as  he 
pleases,  either  to  want  of  sense  or  want  of  principle,  in  his  hero. 

In  palliating  the  more  questionable  demerits  of  the  president  in  regard 
to  his  equivocal  support  of  that  policy  which  inclines  to  an  exorbitant  tariff 
of  duties  on  imports,  for  the  purpose  of  encouraging  domestic  manufac- 
tures, Mr.  Johnson  shines  more  as  a  panegyrist  than  as  an  economist  or 
civilian.     All  liberal  men  agree  that  error  of  opinion  on  this  subject  in- 


23 

volves  no  radical  defect  of  principle.  Large  divisions  of  our  territory  and 
population,  are  the  seats  of  adverse  doctrines  on  this  momentous  and  yet 
experimental  matter,  and  as  they  are  all  animated  by  undoubted  patriotism, 
there  is  every  reason  to  hope  that  the  true  point  beyond  which  the  right 
of  taxation  vested  in  the  federal  government  ought  not  to  be  carried,  will 
be  seasonably  determined  by  the  luminous  collision  of  their  respective  sys- 
tems. Already  important  light  has  been  shed  on  the  matter  by  the  author  of 
Brutus,  in  the  Charleston  Mercury.  He  maintains  that  the  exercise  of 
the  taxing  power  was  intended  by  the  framers  of  the  constitution  to  be 
confined  to  the  purpose  of  revenue,  and  that  whenever  it  might  become 
expedient  for  the  industry  of  any  quarter  of  the  Union,  to  encourage  the 
production  of  a  particular  commodity,  it  was  designed  that  the  state  or 
states  interested  therein,  should  assume  the  qualified  exercise  of  taxing 
power,  "  with  the  con^^ent  of  Congress,  and  on  condition,  that  the  duties 
so  raised  should  be  paid  into  the  Treasury  of  the  United  States."  Who- 
ever reads  his  essays  will  feel  persuaded  that  his  explication  of  many  im- 
portant questions  involving  the  powers  of  the  Geneial  Government,  is 
both  original  and  profound,  and  promises  the  establishment  of  a  fiscal  poli- 
cy consonant  to  the  spirit  of  the  constitution  and  conducive  to  the  preser- 
vation of  the  Union.  I  wish  it  could  be  said  that  either  of  these  great  ob- 
jects was  likely  to  be  advanced  by  the  dissertation  of  Mr.  Johnson  the 
polarity  of  whose  mind  seems  insensible  to  their  high  attraction,  and  to 
turn  with  trembling  constancy  to  the  foot  of  the  throne.  The  right  of  the 
government,  accordingly,  he  deduces  from  its  practice,  as  an  attorney  es- 
tablishes principle  by  precedent,  and  as  if  the  goverment  of  the  United 
States  were  to  impiove  every  thing  but  its  own  practices.  He  insists  that 
the  doctrine  of  indirect  taxation  was  practised  upon  by  the  Administration 
of  Washington,  and  by  that  of  all  his  successors — giving  into  a  fallacy 
which  though  it  makes  his  argument  plausible,  renders  it  unsound. 

The  power  of  taxation,  like  other  powers  vested  in  the  general  govern- 
ment, has  an  object  direct  and  objects  resulting.  Its  direct  object  is  the 
raising  of  reveni'e  ;  among  its  resulting  objects  is  the  encouragement  of 
domestic  manufactures.  This  i.^  clearly  secondary  in  intention  and  subor- 
dinate in  importance  to  the  first  object.  It  must  accordingly  be  increased 
or  diminished,  as  the  scale  of  taxation  is  enlarged  or  contracted.  But  it 
is  an  inversion  of  the  order  of  things,  as  well  as  a  perversion  of  the  mean- 
ing of  the  constitution,  to  say  that  the  scale  of  revenue  is  to  be  enlarged  not 
to  supply  the  necessary  expenses,  or  to  pay  the  debts  of  the  nation,  but  to 
increase  the  resulting  action  of  the  taxing  power — a  power  which  plainly 
would  never  have  been  intrusted  to  the  general  government  but  for  the 
necessity  which  exists  in  all  governments  for  its  direct  object,  revenue. 
Hence  it  does  not  follow,  as  Mr.  Johnson  labours  to  shew,  because  Gener- 
al Washington  established  a  tariff'of  duties,  and  succeeding  administrations 
increased  it,  that  his  policy  and  the  policy  of  his  successors  was,  in  this 
respect,  the  same.  General  Washington's  policy  went  no  further  than 
the  direct  object  of  the  taxing  power  required.  The  lightest  duty  on  the 
importation  of  English  boots  communicates  some  degiee  of  encouragement 
to  American  boot  makers  and  tanners ;  and  as  that  no  similar  duties  must 
be  imposed  in  order  to  provide  in  the  most  convenient  way  for  the  expenses 
of  government,  it  is  certainly  a  mitigation  of  the  necessary  evil  of  taxation, 
that  a  useful  branch  of  domestic  industry  should  be  promoted  by  it.  But 
the  mitigation  of  an  evil  does  not  make  it  a  good.  And  the  objection  which 
Jies  against  the  policy  of  Mr.  Adams,  and  in  a  less  degree  against  that  of 
Mr.  Munroe,  is,  that  it  proposes  to  exercise  the  taxing  power  not  for  its 
direct  object,  and  no  doubt  constitutional  end,  but  for  its  resulting  objects — 
not  for  a  sufficient  revenue,  but  for  a  multitude  of  manufactures  ;  thus  trans- 


29 

tending  the  particular  design  and  violating  the  general  spirit  of  the  con- 
stitution, by  taxing  one  part  of  the  community  for  the  benefit  of  another  5 
making  the  relative  condition  of  the  Southern  States  worse  than  it  was 
before  the  union,  giving  the  manufacturing  States  greater  privileges  than 
they  would  have  enjoyed  without  it;  and  burthening  a  great,  salutary  and 
venerable  branch  ot  human  industry  for  one  less  extensive  and  less  favor- 
able to  the  physical  wants  and  moral  condition  of  mankind. — Let  the  re- 
port of  i\lr.  Secretary  Rush,  in  which  he  proposes  the  artificial  and  oppres- 
sive system  of  England  as  a  model  for  the' financial  policy  of  this  country, 
and  talks  about  resculatvig  every  fibre  of  labor,  and  every  species  of  pro- 
perty in  this  vast  confederacy  of  free  States,  by  a  nicely  balanced  ma- 
chinery of  encouraging  taxation,  be  examined,  and  the  inordinate  and  un- 
constitutional excess  of  \lr.  Adams'  policy  in  the  employment  of  the  tax- 
ing power,  will  at  once  be  perceived. 

Nor,  will  the  force  of  this  contrast  be  at  all  weakened  by  the 
fact  which  Mr.  Johnson  relies  on — viz.  that  the  law  of  '89,  laying  the 
first  duties  imposed  under  the  constitution,  and  advocated  by  Mr.  Madison, 
then  a  member  of  Congress,  recites  in  its  preamble,  that  the  laying  of 
duties  "  was  necessary  for  the  support  of  government,  for  the  discharge 
of  the  debts  of  the  United  States,  and  the  encouragement  and  protection  of 
domestic  manufactures.''^  The  government  was  then  new  and  just  getting 
into  operation.  The  important  and  searching  power  of  taxation  was  then 
first  to  be  applied  to  the  inhabitants  and  property  of  a  number  of  free  states 
who  had  confided  it  reluctantly,  with  many  misgivings  and  hesitations,  to 
the  federal  head.  Under  these  circumstances,  it  was  the  duty  of  Congress, 
and  no  doubt  their  aim,  to  make  the  first  act  of  taxation  as  palitable  as 
possible,  to  recommend  it  as  strongly  as  they  could  to  the  people,  upon 
whose  opinion  they  knew  the  whole  fabric  of  government  rested.  They 
therefore  recited  in  the  preamble,  the  two  great  circumstances  which  ren- 
dered taxation  necessary,  and  the  one  which  was  most  likely  to  render  it 
acceptable.  The  first  was  addressed  to  their  patriotism,  the  second  to 
theii  honor,  the  third  to  their  interest — powerful  appeals  to  paramount 
motives.  This  was  the  object  of  the  preamble,  as  the  least  insight  into 
the  circumstance  of  the  period  would  have  tought  Mr.  Johnson,  and  as  is 
apparent  from  the  fact,  that  subsequent  bills  of  revenue  contain  no  such 
recitations.  It  is  hard  to  forbear  a  smile  at  reflecting  on  the  derisions  and 
surprise  with  which  the  sages  of  '89  would  look  on  this  attempt  to  legal- 
ize a  broad  and  encroaching  system  of  policy,  not  by  expounding  the  terms 
of  analysing  the  spirit  of  the  constitution,  but  by  italicising  a  phrase  "  torn 
from  its  context"  in  the  c<  rner  of  a  preamble  to  an  act. 

But  he  contends  that  whether  Mr.  Adams  be  right  or  wrong  in  respect 
to  the  tariff,  or  his  "  ineffably  gigantic"  schemes  of  internal  improvement, 
his  friends  may  applaud  and  the  nation  trust  him,  because  his  opinions  are 
at  least  as  right  as  those  of  General  Jackson.  This,  although  it  will  turn 
out  to  be  an  improvement  upon  the  old  ELOsurdhy  of  ignotum  per  ignoiius,  is 
probably  the  most  fair  and  formidable  inference  in  the  address,  for,  ag 
Hooker  has  said,  that  change  even  from  the  woi'se^  is  sometimes  inconven- 
ient, there  might  be  some  color  of  reason  in  advising  the  American  people 
to  rest  satisfied  with  Adams,  seeing  that  Jackson's  opinions  coincided  with 
his.  But  unfortunately  for  Mr.  Johnson,  even  this  slender  argument  is 
denied  him  by  the  assertion  of  the  Richmond  meeting,  by  which  his  con- 
vention stands  publicly  affiliated,  and  to  which  he  sent  in  his  memorable 
adhesion.  That  assertion  is  not  disavowed  or  disputed,  and  is  of  course 
adopted  by  Mr.  Johnson's  address,  and  it  declares  that  "  Gon,  Jackson 
shrouds  bis  opinions  of  the  tariff  in  im penetrable  mystery."  While  these 
opinions  are  thus  concealed  in  "  impenetrable  mystery,"  how  does  Mr, 


30 

Johnson  discover  that  they  coincide  exactly  with  those  of  Mr.  Adams  ? 
The  detection  of  such  an  insidious  inconsistency  as  this,  in  the  grave, 
earnest  and  public  affirmations  of  a  man  of  Mr.  Johnson's  standing,  must 
affect  even  his  adversaries  with  more  regret  than  pleasure  ;  and  excite  a 
feeling  of  tender  abhorrence,  like  that  which  induces  us  to  pity  aud  ap- 
prove "the  execution  of  a  criminal. 

Having  with  these  infelicitous  errors,  both  of  argument  and  assertion, 
endeavored  to  justify  the  doctrines  of  Mr.  Adams,  (avoiding  carefully  all 
mention  of  "  the  constitutional  competency,")  and  having  enjoined  upon 
the  American  people  (what  was  no  doubt  modestly  meant)  the  duty  of  ap- 
plying to  the  consideration  of  the  President's  conduct,  that  indulgent  rule 
of  construction  which  insures  impunity  to  guilt  rather  than  security  to  in- 
nocence. Mr.  Johnson  proceeds  with  a  sudden  change  of  temperature,  to 
make  a  portentious  reference  to  the  vast  and  delicate  duties  of  the  chief 
magistrate,  and  fierce  allusions  to  the  temper  and  actions  of  General  Jack- 
son. No  part  of  the  address  discovers  a  colder  prejudice  or  a  more  fer- 
vent loyalty  than  this.  The  Richmond,  is  like  the  Roman  courtier,  m  odio 
SfBVus^  hlandiloquentia  comis.  It  is  really  surprising  to  see  the  same  pen 
running  with  the  lightness  of  Camilla's  step  over  the  faults  of  the  man  in 
power,  and  falJing  with  the  demolishing  tread  of  an  elephant  on  the  virtues 
of  a  private  citizen.  Like  the  "lithe  probosis"  of  that  shrewd  animal,  how- 
ever, it  handles  tenderly  what  is  frail,  and  what  is  sound,  rudely  :  and  the 
quick-sighted  people  of  Virginia  will  neither  be  inflamed  into  injustice  by 
Mr.  Johnson's  violence,  nor  deceived  into  submission  by  his  gentleness.  As 
if  emphasis  were  not  ridiculous  in  stale  misrepresentations,  and  a  tone  of 
deep-mouthed  vituperation  natural  to  those  whose  accisations  are  unsup- 
ported by  fact,  he  tells  them  with  an  air  of  amazing  confidence,  that  Gen- 
eral Jackson  has  "  trampled  on  the  laws  and  constitution  of  his  country, 
has  sacrificed  the  lives  and  liberties  of  men,  and  made  his  own  arbitrary 
will  the  rule  of  his  conduct."  But  his  fundamental  position  is  this — "  ca- 
pacity for  civil  aflfairs  in  a  country  like  ours,  where  the  road  to  preferment 
is  open  to  merit  in  every  class  of  society,  is  never  long  concealed,  and  sel- 
dom left  in  retirement."  It  is  then  added,  that  "  General  Jackson  has  liv- 
ed beyond  the  age  of  sixty  years,  and  was  bred  to  the  profession  best  cal- 
culated to  improve  and  display  the  faculties  which  civil  employments  re- 
quire ;  but  the  history  of  his  pifblic  life  in  those  employments  is  told  in  a 
few  brief  lines  in  a  single  page  of  his  biographer.  He  filled  successively 
and  for  very  short  periods,  the  office  of  member  of  the  Tennessee  Conven- 
tion, which  formed  their  State  Constitution,  Representative  and  Senator  in 
Congress,  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Cmrt  of  Tennessee,  and  again  Senator 
in  C'Ongress  of  the  United  States."  Where  a  man  is  so  vei-y  didactic  as 
Mr.  Johnson  is,  accuracy  of  knowledge  and  precision  of  detail  might  be  ex- 
pected. But  these  humble  constituents  of  truth  lie  far  beneath  the  range 
of  his  romantic  fancy,  as  the  reader  who  chooses  to  consult  Eaton's  work 
will  find.*  The  account  of  Jackson's  "  civil  employments"  is  not  contain- 
ed on  a  "  single  page"  of  that  work,  and  Mr.  Johnson's  summary  of  it  is 
defective  as  to  the  very  important  office  of  Attorney  General,  which  Wash- 
ington, no  mean  judge  of  merit,  himself  conferred.  But  if  we  admire  the 
fidelity  of  his  statements  we  shall  be  amazed  at  the  accuracy  of  his  rea- 
soning.   He  concludes,  that  as  capacity  for  civil  offices  is  in  this  country 

*See  pages  17, 18.  GeneralJackson,  though  no  set-fast  in  office,  was  eight  years  Attorney 
Cteneral  of  the  Territory,  and  six  years  Judge  of  the  highest  court  of  the  Sute.  His  resignation 
of  this  last  station  was  accepted  on  the  24th  July,  1804,  thirteen  days  after  Hamilton  was  shot 
by  Burr,  and  a  year  at  least  before  the  appearance  of  Burr  in  the  W^estern  country,  with  whom, 
as  a  Judge,  the  secret  slanderers  under  the  management  of  Mr.  Johnson,  attempt  to  associa'e 
him. 


31 

"  never  long  concealed  and  seldom  left  in  retirement,"  the  frequent  appoint- 
ment and  repeated  election  of  General  Jackson  is  proof  positive  of  his  no- 
torious incapacity  to  fill  them.  There  is  somethinof  transcendental  in  this 
syllogism.  And  if  we  reflect  that  in  addition  to  Mr.  Johnson's  corrected 
list  of  civil  offices,  General  Jackson  has  filled  the  important  ones  of  com- 
missioner for  receiving  the  cession  of  Florida,  of  Governor  of  that  Territo- 
ry under  the  Spanish  laws,  and  negociator  of  several  of  our  most  important 
Indian  treaties,  that  he  never  solicited  an  office  in  his  life,  or  abused  the 
confidence  which  his  constituents  reposed  in  him — that  Mr.  Adams  never 
filled  one  which  connected  him  immediately  with  the  people  the  great 
central  fire  which  distributes  warmth  and  life  to  our  whole  system  ;  and 
that  his  services  were  recommended  to  one  party  by  descent,  and  to 
the  other  by  purchase,  its  value  as  a  political  argument  may  be  correctly 
estimated.  The  evident  distortion  of  Mr.  Johnson's  judgment  seems  to  be 
chronically  confirmed  by  the  fact,  that  General  Jackson  resigned  several 
of  these  offices,  manifesting  a  preference  for  private  life,  in  unison  with 
the  taste  of  Cincinnatus,  of  Washington,  and  of  all  the  greatest  patriots  of 
the  world,  ^nd  in  opposition  to  that  low  ambition  which  cannot  exist  out  of 
the  purlieus  of  the  treasury.  The  classical  reatler  will  remember  how  the 
Roman  writers  celebrate  the  reluctance  with  which  the  Dictator  ahAratro 
left  his  farm,  and  the  satisfaction  with  which,  crowned  with  laurels,  he  re- 
tired to  it.  The  same  disposition  was  seen  and  admired  in  our  beloved 
Washington.  In  a  letter  to  a  member  of  Congress,  who  was  persuading 
him  to  accept  the  office  of  President,  then  just  created,  he  thus  expressed 
himself:  "  You  are  among  the  small  number  of  those  who  know  my  invin- 
cible attachment  to  domestic  life,  and  that  my  sincere  wish  is  to  continue 
in  the  enjoyment  of  it  solely,  to  my  final  hour.  My  increasing  fondness 
for  agricultural  amusements,  and  my  growing  love  of  retirement,  augment 
and  confirm  my  decided  predilection  for  the  character  of  a  private  citizen.'* 
And  he  concludes — "  You  will  perceive,  my  dear  sir,  from  what  is  here  ob- 
served, that  my  inclinations  will  dispose  and  decide  me  to  remam  as  I  am, 
unless  a  clear  and  insurmountable  conviction  should  be  impressed  on  my 
mind,  that  some  very  disagreeable  consequences,  must  in  all  human  proba- 
bility result  from  the  indulgence  of  my  wishes."  This  letter  was  written 
when  Washington  was  in  his  57th  year,  and  Jackson  was  ,58  when  he 
made  his  last  and  most  splendid  resignation.  This  is  the  temper  and  these 
are  the  habits  that  render  "  military  chieftains"  the  defenders  of  the  repub- 
lic in  war,  and  its  guardians  in  peace  ;  and  it  is  not  the  least  extravagant  of 
Mr.  Johnson's  paralogisms,  that  in  the  same  breath  he  should  descant  on 
the  dangerous  influence  of  military  renown,  and  reproach  its  possessor  with 
an  obstinate  predilection  for  private  life.  Mr.  Clay  and  Mr.  Adams,  it  is 
true,  have  never  yet  offered  to  the  world  that  best  and  most  lovely  evidence 
of  merit,  which  modesty  displays,  have  never  resigned  one  office  without 
the  prospect  of  another,  and  are  not  likely  to  impose  on  their  eulogists  the 
task  of  portraying  the  grand  but  quiet  virtue  of  disinterestedness.  Yet, 
Washington,  the  military  chieftain,  served  eight  years  without  giving  rea- 
son to  doubt  his  wisdom  or  integrity^  while  Messrs.  Adams  and  Clay,  the 
diplomatist  and  the  orator,  have  effected  in  less  than  half  that  time,  a  gen- 
eral conviction  that  they  are  destitute  of  both. 

But,  says  Mr.  Johnson,  General  Jackson  not  only  "  resigned  three,  but 
passed  through  all  these  offices,  acknowledging  his  unfitness  in  two  in- 
stances, manifestly  feeling  it  in  all,  an  1  leaving  no  single  act,  no  trace  be- 
hind, which  stamps  his  qualifications  above  mediocrity."  Such  allegations 
as  these  are  enough  (to  use  Mr.  Johnson's  peculiar  dialect)  "to  stamp  their 
author  below  mediocrity" — as  they  abound  in  misstatement  and  miscon- 
struction.    An  individual  is  appointed  to  one  office,  and  successively  pro- 


32 

woted  to  two  others,  and  because  he  vacates  the  subordinate  ones  in  order 
to  reach  the  liighest  in  the  series,  these  acts  of  resiofnation  are  interpreted 
into  a  confession  of  his  own  unfitness.  Did  Mr.  Clay  acknowledge  his  un- 
fitness for  the  Speaker's  chair,  when  he  resigned  it  and  took  office  in  the 
cabinet  of  Mr.  Adams  ?  Does  a  Colonel  evince  a  conscious  incapacity 
when  he  accepts  the  commission  of  General  ?  General  Jackson  resigned 
his  seat  in  the  House  of  Representatives  to  fill  a  place  in  the  Senate,  and 
this  station  he  resigned  with  a  patriotism  and  liberality  highly  honorable 
to  him,  to  make  room  for  General  D miel  Smith,  his  neighbor  and  friend — 
a  gentleman  whose  superior  age  and  scientific  attainments  gave  him  pecu- 
liar claims  to  public  confidence,  and  inspired  a  hope  that  he  would  prove  a 
useful  accession  to  the  party  which  was  then  opposed  to  the  administration 
of  the  elder  Adams.  This  disinterested  act,  which  few  of  the  many  who 
can  make  long  speeches,  would  be  capable  of,  is  urged  in  the  address  as  fur- 
ther proof  of  incapacity,  and  the  formidable  array  of  evidence  to  that  point, 
is  completed  by  the  assertion  that  "  no  trace,"  that  is.  no  speech  is  left  be- 
hind him  in  his  civil  career,  placing  him  above  mediocrity.  But  before  the 
conclusion  here  designated  can  be  admitted,it  must  be  ascertained  whether  a 
long  speech  in  Congress,  is  not  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,at  least  a  proof  of  me- 
diocrity.* A  member  of  Congress,  who,  without  the  possession  of  rare  orato- 
rical powers,  makes  long  speeches,  is  known  to  have  given  full  exertion  to 
his  abilities,and  has  no  claim  to  a  reputation  higher  than  that  which  is  acquir- 
ed by  a  large  portion  of  his  comrades.  Whereas  a  silent  member  is  regard- 
ed as  possessed  of  such  strength  of  mind  and  dignity  of  taste,  as  to  disdain 
the  slender  repute  which  one  or  more  speeches  create,  and  is,  tor  that  very 
reason,  considered  far  above  mediocrity.  When  Patrick  Henry  was  ask- 
ed "who  he  thought  the  greatest  man"  in  the  famous  Congress  of '74,  from 
which  he  was  just  returned,  he  replied — "  If  you  speak  of  eloquence,  Mr. 
Rutledge  of  South  Carolina,  is  by  far  the  greatest  orator;  but  if  you  speak 
of  solid  judgment  and  sound  information,  Co  onel  Washington  is  unques- 
tionably the  greatest  man  on  that  floor."f  Yet  Washington  "passed 
through  and  resigned"  this  and  other  civil  offices,  without  leaving  "a 
trace"  behind,  which  in  the  accurate  style  and  estimation  of  Mr.  Johnson, 
"stamped  his  qualifications  above  mediocrity."  It  is  rather  unfortunate 
for  one,  who  undertakes  to  instruct  the  people  of  Virginia,  that  his  most 
oracular  opinions  should  conflict  with  the  dictates  of  common  sense — the 
judgment  of  Patrick  Henry,  and  the  example  of  Washington. 

The  temper  of  General  Jackson  is  said  to  be  as  unsuitable  as  his  capa- 
city, and  "  the  spirit  of  domination  displayed  in  his  celebrated  letter  to 
Gov.  Rabun,"  is  referred  to  as  evidence  that  the  office  of  President  should 
not  be  entrusted  to  his  "  impetuousity  of  temper  "  and  "  fiery  misrule." 
In  a  deep  prophetic  tone  it  is  added,  a  foreif^m  war  may  come,  may  rage 
with  violence,  and  may  find  General  Jackson  at  the  head  of  the  civil  gov- 
ernment and  commander  in  chief  of  the  land  and  naval  forces.  Dissenti- 
ent views  among  the  statesmen  may  arise — controversies  grow  up  between 
the  state  and  federal  authorities — as  discussions  and  controversies  have 
heretofore  arisen — and  who  then,  we  pray  you,  can  answer  for  the  conse- 
quences of  that  spirit  which  said  to  Gov.  Rabun,  "  when  I  am  in  the  field 
you  have  no  authority  to  issue  a  military  order."  It  may  be  thought  singu- 
lar that  Mr.  Johnson,  after  having  so  bitterly  reviled  and  lamented  the  un- 
fairness of  tearing  "  from  their  context  "  the  expressions  of  the  President, 
should  when  urging  a  charge  so  personal  in  its  nature  as  this  againsl.  his 
rival,  and  attaching  to  it,  as  a  consequence,  "  the  dissolution  of  the  Union, 

*  Frank  Johnson  made  a  speech  five  days  long, 
t  Wirt's  life  of  Henry,  page  113. 


33 

and  death  to  the  hopes  of  every  free  government  upon  earth,"  be  guilty  of 
this  very  unfairness  himself  witli  a  violence  too,  which  cannot  be  conceiv- 
ed without  attending  lo  the  following  summary  of  facts  : 

When  General  Jackson  assumed  the  direction  of  the  Seminole  war 
he  found  General  Gaines  near  Hartford,  in  Georgia,  at  the  head  of  the  con- 
tingent force  of  that  State,  which  he  speedily  put  into  motion.  Advanc- 
ing with  his  raw  force  of  one  thousand  men,  in  the  direction  of  Fort  .-Scott, 
he  passed  on  rude  rafts  and  scarce  practicable  routes,  the  fenny  sv/amps 
and  flooded  rivers  of  that  region,  impelled  by  the  energy  of  his  character 
and  the  hope  of  finding  the  supplies  which  had  been  ordered  there,  at 
Fort  Early.  Jiut  when  he  reached  that  place,  the  danger  of  famine  was 
not  abated,  there  being  only  a  barrel  and  a  half  of  flour  and  a  few  bushels  of 
corn  in  the  Fort.  In  the  neighbourhood  lived  a  small  tribe  of  Indians,  the 
Chehaws,  whose  friendship,  though  doubted,  now  proved  sincere.  To 
these  sons  of  the  forest  in  his  extremity,  he  applied,  desiring  them  to  bring 
in  such  supplies  of  corn,  peas  and  potatoes  as  they  could  spare,  and  prom- 
ising liberal  pay  for  them.  They  immediately  brought  a  small  supply, 
and  on  the  General's  encamping  near  their  village,  which  lay  directly  in 
his  route  to  Fort  Scott,  their  aged  Chief,  Howard,  the  survivor  of  many 
wars  with  the  kings  of  the  forest  and  the  foes  of  his  tribe,  received  him 
as  a  brother,  and  the  simple-hearted  community  emptied  almost  to  exhaus- 
tion, to  relieve  the  wants  of  their  guests,  the  small  stock  of  food  which 
had  been  collected  for  their  subsistence  through  the  winter.  Enthusiasm 
succeeding  their  kindness — the  few  warriors  of  the  village  joined  the 
American  standard,  and  it  was  only  in  compliance  with  Jackson's  request, 
that  the  grandson  of  Howard,  a  youth  of  eighteen,  was  left  to  assist  that 
patriarch  of  the  woods,  in  attending  to  the  old  men,  women  and  children. 
Thus  confiding  in  the  honor  of  General  Jackson,  and  in  the  faith  of  the 
United  States,  the  Chehaw  villagers  were  left  in  complete  exposure. 
But  what  had  they  to  apprehend,  or  what  had  General  Jackson  to  appre- 
hend for  them  ?  To  the  commanding  officer  of  the  small  garrison  left  at 
Fort  Early,  he  had  given  instruction  to  consider  the  Chehaws  as  friends, 
and  there  was  no  power  behind  him  that  could  be  dangerous  to  the  allies 
of  the  United  States.  Having  clasped  the  right  hand  of  Howard  in  friend- 
ship, marshalled  the  warriors  of  the  tribe,  and  assured  the  women  of  peace 
and  protection,  who,  with  their  "  young  barbarians,"  witnessed  his  depar- 
ture, he  hastened  onward  to  the  theatre  of  war. 

Where  the  lion  walks  harmless,  the  wolf  prowls  most  ferociously.  A 
Captain  Wright,  of  the  Georgia  militia,  upon  some  false  imformation, 
conceived  and  communicated  to  the  Governor,  the  impression,  that  after 
the  march  of  General  Jackson  from  the  vicinity  of  Hartford,  hostilities 
had  been  committed  on  that  section  of  the  frontier  by  the  Philonees  and 
Oponees — subordinate  or  rather  incorporated  septs  of  the  Chehaw  tribe. 
The  Governor,  on  this  erroneous  representation,  issued  a  very  inconsider- 
ate order,  empowering  the  Captain  to  march  at  the  head  of  two  compa- 
nies of  cavalry,  and  such  infantry  as  could  be  drawn  from  the  garrison  of 
Fort  Early,  against  the  supposed  aggressors.  It  was  in  vain  that  the 
commanding  officer  there  assured  Captain  Wright  of  the  friendship  and 
innocence  of  the  (.Chehaws,  and  informed  him  of  their  recent  aid  and  hos- 
pitality to  General  Jackson.  But  why  prolong  the  dreadful  recital  !  The 
Governor's  party  had  the  power  and  the  will  to  destroy.  They  burst  like 
a  tempest  on  the  devoted  village.  Helpless  age  and  unresisting  infancy 
they  confounded  in  one  torrent  of  destruction.  The  bayonet,  red  with  the 
blood  of  the  infant,  was  plunged  into  the  breast  of  the  mother.  The  aged 
Howard  supported  by  his  grand-son,  advanced  with  a  white  flag,  and  was 
shot  with  that  emblem  of  mith  and  peace  in  his  feeble  hand.    The  same 


34 

cruel  volley  despatched  his  grand-son — the  village  was  given  to  the  flames 
— the  women  and  children  to  the  edge  of  the  sword,  or  they  fled  frotn  in- 
stant slaughter  in  terror  and  exile,  to  famine.  Wilder  scenes  of  desola- 
tion have  indeed  been  spread  on  the  face  of  the  globe,  when  hyder  de- 
scended like  a  thundercloud  from  the  mountains  of  Mysore,  upon  the 
plains  of  tiie  Carnatio — or  when  Turreau  left  La  Vendee  .shrouded  in  soli- 
tude and  ashes.  But  a  deeper  stain  of  dishonor  or  a  more  intense  visita- 
tion of  wo  was  never  seen  or  inflicted,  than  at  the  ^ecluded  village  of  the 
Chehaws.  The  massacre  of  Wyoming  was  mercy  to  it,  and  the  revenge 
of  Brandt  far  less  cruel  than  this  amity  of  the  United  States.  It  violated 
at  one  blow,  humanity,  friendship,  and  the  faith  of  treaties — the  obligations 
of  justice,  gratitude  and  honor— and  involved  in  its  consequences  the  dis- 
grace of  the  nation,  the  murder  of  our  citizens,  and  the  probable  renewal 
of  the  war,  which  was  then  almost  concluded.  Against  this  shameful 
outrage,  the  heart  of  Jackson  arose,  and  he  resented  it  with  indignation, 
but  not  without  dignity,  complaining  to  the  executive  of  the  United  States 
and  remonstrating  with  that  of  Georgia.  To  the  former  he  says,  (7th 
May  1818.)  "  The  outrage  which  has  been  committed  on  the  super-anuated 
warriors,  women  and  children  of  the  Chehaws,  whose  sons  were  then  in 
the  field,  in  the  service  of  the  United  States,  merits  the  severest  chastise- 
ment. The  interference  too  of  the  Governor  of  Georgia,  with  the  duties 
imposed  on  me,  claims  the  early  attention  of  the  President.  All  the  ef- 
fects of  my  campaign  may  by  this  one  act  be  destroyed,  and  the  same 
scenes  of  massacre  and  murder  with  which  our  frontier  settlements  have 
been  visited,  again  repeated."*  To  the  latter  (i^Iay  7;  after  referring  to 
the  massacre  as  "  base  and  cowardly,"  and  to  an  enclosed  copy  of  General 
Glascocks  letter  detailing  it,  he  observes  "That  a  Governor  of  a  State 
should  make  war  against  an  Indian  tribe  at  perfect  peace  with  and  under 
the  protection  of  the  United  States,  is  assuming  a  responsibility  that  I  trust 
you  will  be  able  to  excuse  to  the  United  States,  to  which  you  will  have  to 
answer,"  and  he  adds,  "you  as  Governor  of  a  State  within  my  Diilitary 
division,  have  no  right  to  give  a  military  order  when  I  am  in  the  field." 
This  last  is  the  phrase  which  Mr.  Johnson  has  "torn  from  its  context," 
and  repeated  with  an  aggrevating  abbreviation,  and  in  alarming  italics. 

*  General  Jackson  was  informed  of  this  calamity  by  a  letter  from  General  Glascock,  dated 
the  30th  April  18.8,  written  at  Fort  Karly  ou  his  return  to  Georgia,  with  the  contingent  of 
th-^t  state.  The  following  is  an  extract :  "  On  arriving  within  thirty  miles  of  the  Chehaw  vil- 
lage, I  sent  on  Major  obinson,  with  a  detachment  of  twenty  men,  to  procure  beef  •,  On  his 
arriving  there  the  Indians  had  fled  in  every  direction,  the  Chehaw  town  having  been  consumed 
about  four  days  before,  by  a  party  of  men  consisting  of  2:30,  under  Captain  Wright,  now  in 
command  at  Hartford.  It  appears  that  after  he  assumed  the  commandof  thatplare,  he  obtained 
the  certificates  of  several  men  on  the  frontier,  that  the  Chehaw  Indians  were  engaged  in  a 
skirmish  on  the  Big  Bend.  He  immediately  sent  or  went  to  the  Governor  and  obtained  orders 
to  de-troy  the  town  of  PhiUemee  and  Open-  e.  Two  c-mpanies  of  cavalry  were  immediately 
ordered  out  and  placed  under  his  command, and  on  the  22d  he  reached  this  place.  He  ord;  jcd 
Capt.  Bothwell  to  furnish  him  with  twenty-five  or  thirty  men  to  accompany  him  ;  having 
been  authorized  to  do  so  by  the  (Governor,  t»'e  order  was  complied  with.  Captain  Bothwell 
told  him  that  he  could  not  accompany  him  himself  ;  disapproved  the  \  Ian  and  informed  (  apt. 
Wright  that  there  could  be  no  doubt  of  the  friendship  of  the  Indians  in  that  quarter  and  stated 
thatOponee  had  on  that  day,  brought  in  a  public  horse  that  had  been  lost.  This  availed 
nothing,  mock  patriotism  burned  in  their  breasts.  1  hey  crossed  the  river  that  night  and  push- 
ed for  the  town.  When  arriving  near  there,  an  Indian  was  discovered  graying  ^onJe  cnttle  ; 
he  was  made  a  prisoner.  I  am  informed  by  sergeant  Jones,  that  the  Indian  proposed 
to  go  with  the  interpreter  and  bring  one  of  the  Chiefs,  for  the  C;  ptain  to  talk  with.  It  was 
not  attended  to -an  advance  was  ordered  the  cavalry  pushed  forward  and  commenced  the 
massacre.  Even  after  the  firing  and  murder  commenced.  Major  Howard,  an  old  Chief,  who 
furnished  you  with  considerable  corn,  came  out  from  his  house  with  a  white  flag.  It  was 
not  respected  ;  an  order  for  a  general  fire  was  given  and  nearly  four  hundred  gi  iis  were  dis- 
charged at  him  before  it  took  effect.  He  fell  and  was  bay<  netted.  His  son  f  grand  son)  was 
also  kHled."  After  continuing  such  horrid  details  as  above.  General  Glascock  adds.  '•  Since 
thet,  three  of  my  command,  who  were  left  at  Fort  Scott,  obtained  a  furlough,  and  o.i  their 
way  to  this  place,  one  of  them  was  shot."  So  that  the  outrage  produced  by  the  order  of  the 
Governor  of  Georgia,  was  already  being  retaliated  on  his  fellow  citizens. 


35 

"When  I  am  in  the  field  you  havl  no  right  to  issue  a  military  order."  Now, 
although  the  negation  may  at  first  appear  too  general,  yet  the  context 
plainly  limits  it  to  the  field  of  command  on  which  Jackson  was  then  em- 
ployed. It  obviously  was  not  his  intention  to  say  that  the  Governor  had 
no  right  to  regulate  the  militia  concerns  of  his  State,  or  to  order.out  quotas 
in  the  service  of  the  United  States,  but  that  he  had  no  right,  as  Governor 
of  Georgia,  to  interfere  with  his  duties,  by  operations  extraneous  to  the 
sovereignty  of  the  J^tate,  and  hostile  to  the  Indians  at  peace  with  and 
under  the  protection  of  the  United  States.  In  this  he  was  perfectly  right, 
and  evinced  a  disposition  to  preserve  rather  than  to  disturb  the  harmony 
so  desirable  between  the  States  and  the  general  government.  The 
power  of  making  war  is  vested  exclusively  by  the  constitution  in  the  fed- 
eral government,  and  the  equivalent  duty  imposed  on  it  of  guaranteeing 
the  integrity  and  independence  of  the  several  States.  This  duty,  the 
federal  government  was  then  in  the  act  of  discharging  in  favor  of  the 
State  of  Georgia  ;  and  yet,  according  to  Mr.  Johnson,  the  Governor  of 
Georgia  was  to  interrupt  its  military  operations,  and  to  murder  its  friends 
and  allies,  without  the  voice  of  remonstrance  or  admonition.  Let  us  sup- 
pose fur  a  moment,  that  after  General  Brown  had  concluded  a  friendly 
agreement  with  the  BufFaloe  Indians,  and  with  their  supplies  of  provisions 
and  men,  had  invaded  Canada,  Governor  Tompkins  had  come  on  his  track, 
burnt  the  friendly  village,  and  destroyed  or  dispersed  its  inhabitants. 
Would  it  have  been  an  unpardonable  offence  in  General  Brown  to  remon- 
strate against  that  outrage,  and  to  inform  Governor  Tompkins  that  he  had 
transcended  his  authority  ?  Would  it  have  displayed  a  "dangerous  spirit 
of  domination,"  or  an  honorable  feeling  of  justice  and  humanity  ?  And 
would  it  have  exposed  Gen.  Brown  to  the  suspicion  and  execration  of  his 
fellow  citizens,  or  entitled  him  to  their  approbation  and  support  ?  Mr. 
Johnson's  acquaintance  with  history  will  remind  him  that  the  taking  of 
Saguntum,  while  in  alliance  with  the  Romans,  was  the  immediate  cause 
of  the  second  Punic  war,  and  that  the  destruction  of  that  city  excited  a 
dignified  resentment  in  the  Roman  people,  which  defeat  after  defeat,  and 
slaughther  after  slaughter,  could  not  subdue,  and  gave  a  moral  interest  as 
well  as  a  political  force  to  the  vengeful  expression  of  the  elder  Cato,  "  de- 
lenda  est  Carthagro."  Not  to  mention  other  examples  of  feeling  repugnant 
to  the  sentiments  with  which  Mr.  Johnson  contemplates  the  sensibility  of 
General  Jackson  for  the  fate  of  the  Chehaws,  the  pride  which  on  a  late 
occasion  England  took  in  stretching  forth  her  power  as  an  agis  over  her 
"  ancient  ally"  may  be  cited — when  Mr.  Canning,  as  the  organ  of  his 
country,  declared  to  the  nations  in  a  tone  of  generous  defiance,  that  when 
the  march  of  foreign  conquest  touched  the  frontiers  of  Portugal,  it  must 
stay  its  haughty  step.  Yet,  while  we  admire  the  spirit  of  the  Roman  people 
and  of  the  English  Statesman,  we  are  persuaded  to  believe,  by  Mr.  John- 
son and  his  star  chamber  judges,  that  when  our  own  patiiot  protested 
against  an  outrage  on  humanity  a  violation  of  faith,  and  usurpation  of  au- 
thority, acquiescence  in  which  would  have  stained  with  disgrace  our  com- 
mon sense,  our  common  nature  and  our  common  country,  he  displayed  a 
"fiery  misrule  of  temper,"  and  "a  dangerous  spirit  of  domination." 

It  may  perhaps,  be  within  the  extensive  circle  of  his  sophistry  to 
contend  that  the  Governor  of  Georgia,  as  the  head  of  a  sovereign  state, 
had  a  rip^ht  to  make  war  on  the  Indians,  the  right  of  war  being  an  inci- 
dent inseparable  from  sovereignty.  Waiving  the  constitutional  pact  be- 
tween the  states  and  the  federal  government,  and  the  laws  of  Congress, 
placing  the  Indian  tribes  under  the  control  and  keeping  of  the  United 
States,  which  would  at  once  defeat  this  course  of  argument,  it  will  be 
enough  to  observe,  that  even  if  the  Governor  had  the  right  of  waging  this 


36 

war,  he  was  bound  to  prosecute  it  according  to  the  law  of  nations  and  the 
usaf^es  of  war.  These  would  have  rendered  it  his  duty  to  ascertain  first, 
whether  the  injury  he  complained  of  was  really  committed  by  the  Che- 
haws — and  if  it  were,  secondly,  whether  the  authorities  of  that  tribe 
would  make  or  refuse  proper  reparation.  This  is  the  practice  of  all  civi- 
lized states— is  that  of  the  United  States — and  was  exemplified  in  the  late 
disturbance  with  the  Winnebagoes.  So  that,  conceding  the  right  of  war 
to  the  Governor,  his  violation  of  the  laws  and  usages  of  war  to  the  injury 
of  the  Chehaws,  justly  exposed  him  to  the  remonstrances  of  General 
Jackson,  who,  as  an  officer  of  the  United  States,  the  guest  of  the  venera- 
ble Howard,  and  the  commander  of  the  Chehaw  warriors,  was  in  strict 
alliance  with  that  tribe,  and  bound  to  protect  it.  The  fact  is,  that  the 
Governor  of  Georgia  was  for  a  time,  so  infatuated,  as  to  consider  his  offi- 
cial dignity  invaded,  and  his  power  encroached  upon  by  this  remonstrance 
of  the  General,  and  under  that  impression  wrote  a  lettef  to  him,  remind- 
ing him  of  Georgia's  "bleeding  frontier,''  and  taunting  him  with  affecting 
"  a  military  despotism."  The  fact  is  too,  that  this  his  letter,  made  its  gas- 
conading appearance  in  a  Georgia  Journal,  before  it  was  received  by  the 
General,  and  fell  into  disreputable  oblivion  soon  after.  And  the  probabil- 
ity is,  that  Mr.  Johnson,  who  though  prodigal  in  charges,  is  penurious  in 
proofs,  has  been  guided  to  this  buried  slander  by  a  sense  for  defamation 
as  keen  and  creditable  as  that  which  leads  certain  winged  gnostics  to  the 
carcases  of  the  dead.  But  it  has  as  little  truth  as  fragrance.  For  from 
the  time  the  Georgia  Brigade  encamped  on  the  Oakmulgee,  and  under 
the  conduct  of  General  Jackson,  marched  by  the  way  of  Fort  Early  to 
Fort  Scott,  up  to  the  close  of  the  war,  the  southern  frontier  of  that  State 
could  neither  have  bled  nor  been  exposed.  A  thousand  men  either  sta- 
tioned on  that  frontier,  or  penetrating  from  it  into  the  Indian  country,  na- 
turally bore  off"  any  thing  like  hostility  ;  and  accordingly  General  Jacksoii 
met  with  no  opposition  until  he  reached  the  Mickasuky  towns,  at  least 
150  miles  south  of  Hartford.  Besides,  the  Tennessee  contingent  consist- 
ing also  of  ]  000  men,  had  marched  on  the  14th  of  February  from  Fay- 
etteville  in  Tennessee,  under  the  command  of  Colonel  Hayne,  of  the  Uni- 
ted States  Army,  and  after  reaching  Fort  Mitchell,  on  their  way  to  join 
General  Jackson  at  Fort  Scott,  had  from  information  that  their  rations 
which  had  given  out  could  not  be  replenished  in  the  direction  of  Fort 
Scott,  filed  off  to  the  left,  and  by  a  route  nearly  parrallel  to  the  advance 
of  Jackson,"  had  passed  into  Georgia,  at  Hartford ;  where  Colonel 
Hayne  with  400  men  remained  for  the  protection  of  that  frontier,  until 
after  the  period  of  which  Governor  Rabun  represented  it  to  be  "  bleed- 
ing."* There  could  therefore  have  been  no  real  cause,  as  there  was  no 
possible  justification  for  the  attack  on  the  Chehaws  ;  and  of  this  the  Gov- 
ernor himself  was  soon  sensible,  for  in  a  letter  of  the  11th  May,  from 
Milledgeville,  General  Glascock  says  to  General  Jackson — "  I  had  an  in- 
terview with  the  agent  and  the  Governor,  and  they  have  concluded  that  a 
talk  will  immediately  be  held  with  the  chiefs  of  that  place — ascertain  the 
amount  of  property  destroyed,  and  make  ample  reparation  for  the  same. 
This  is  at  once  acknowledging  the  impropriety  of  the  attack,  and  not  in 
the  least  degree  throwing  oft'  the  stigma  that  will  be  attached  to  the 
State." 

The  next  charge  is  headed  with  the  following  important  dictum.  "  Mi- 
litary men  should  never  be  allowed  to  forget  that  the  obligation  to  obey, 
being  the  sole  foundation  of  the  authority  to  command,  they  should  incui- 

*See  the  despatch  of  General  Jackson  to  the  war  department  of  the  25th  March,  from 
Fort  Gadsden,  three  weeks  before  the  massacre  of  the  Chehawa,  and  also  his  letter  of  the 
11th  of  August  to  Governor  Rabun. 


37 

ivBite  subordination  not  by  precept  only,  but  by  example."  And  it  is  alleg- 
ed that  in  defiance  of  it,  General  Jackson  has  committed  a  threefold  of- 
fence. "  He  has  offered  indignity  to  the  Secretary  of  War  in  the  very  let- 
ter assigning  his  reasons  for  disobeying-  the  order  to  disband  his  troops — 
he  has  placed  his  own  authority  in  opposition  to  that  of  the  War  Depart- 
ment, by  a  general  order  forbiding  the  officers  of  his  command,  to  obey 
the  orders  of  the  Department,  unless  they  passed  through  the  channel 
which  he  had  chosen  to  prescribe — and  he  disobeyed  the  order  of  the  Go- 
vernment in  his  military  operations  in  the  Spanish  territory."  Sweeping 
charges  are  almost  always  unfounded,  because  in  order  to  make  them 
plausible  it  is  necessary  to  suppress  the  very  circumstances  which  qualify 
the  actions  they  inculcate.  In  the  precise  tone  of  Mr.  Johnson,  an  Eng- 
lish essayist  might  say  that  the  Congress  of  '76  offered  an  indignity  to  the 
King  of  Great  fintain,  in  the  declaration  of  independence  assigning  their 
reasons  for  disobeynisr  his  authority.  Every  case  of  the  kind  is  character- 
ized only  by  its  circumstances,  and  when  an  expert  disputant  trained  to 
the  tricks  of  the  forum,  advances  a  charge  and  omits  the  circumstances 
explanatory  of  its  foundation,  it  is  strong  evidence  that  he  is  himself  con- 
scious of  its  injustice.  Now  it  turns  out  that  the  alleged  disobedience  of 
General  Jackson  was  justified  by  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  was  ap- 
proved by  the  government  and  sanctioned  by  events.  Under  the  acts  au- 
thorising the  President  to  accept  the  services  of  50,000  volunteers.  Gen- 
eral Jackson,  then  commanding  the  2d  division  of  that  militia  which  he 
soon  rendered  so  famous — tendered  to  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  the  services  of  himself  and  two  thousand  five  hundred  men  of  his 
division,  and  the  tender  was  accepted  The  detachment  having  been  em- 
bodied and  organized,  was  ordered  to  proceed  by  water  to  New  Orleans. 
Subsequently  to  his  departure,  General  Jackson  was  advised  to  halt  near 
Natchez,  and  in  compliance  with  it,  he  took  a  position  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  that  city.  Here  while  attending  to  the  health  and  discipline  of 
the  corps,  he  received  the  laconic  mandate  from  the  War  Department, 
with  disobedience  to  which  he  is  so  grievously  reproached.  It  is  first  to 
be  noticed,  that  as  all  men  have  some  degree  of  fallibility,  and  some  de- 
gree of  discretion,  and  as  the  imperfections  of  language  and  the  interpo- 
sition of  distance,  give  ample  scope  for  the  operation  of  both,  it  may  well 
happen  that  the  non-execution  of  an  order  is  the  best  possible  mode  of 
obeying  the  government.  When  an  officer  receives  an  order,  which  the 
exercise  of  a  sound  discretion  convinces  him,  would  not  have  been  issued 
had  the  condition  of  the  circumstance  in  which  it  was  to  operate  been 
known  to  the  authority  from  which  it  proceeded,  the  spirit  of  his  duty 
comes  in  direct  opposition  to  the  letter  of  his  order.  Obedience  in  such 
a  ease,  consists  not  in  a  blind  submission  to  the  words,  but  in  a  zealous 
fulfilment  of  the  intentions  of  the  government.  The  order  of  the  Empe- 
ror, it  is  true,  authorized  Grouchy  to  continue  his  unprofitable  contest 
with  the  Prussians,  but  the  spirit  of  his  duty  required  his  presence  and 
exertions  at  Waterloo.  By  disregarding  the  signal  which  recalled  him 
from  fight.  Lord  Nelson  fulfilled  the  wishes  of  his  Government,  shook  the 
throne  of  Denmark,  and  shattered  the  confederacy  of  northern  powers. 
So  obvious  is  the  distinction  betvveen  nominal  and  real  obedience,  that  it 
could  not  have  escaped  the  attention  of  Mr.  Johnson,  but  for  the  loyal 
amazement  with  ,which  he  is  afferted  at  the  idea  of  indignity  to  the  head 
of  a  department.  This  seems  to  overcome  all  his  better  faculties,  and  t« 
leave  him  nothing  but  the  powers  of  genuflection  and  obloquy.  He  for- 
gets that  an  order  may  be  obscure,  and  therefore  liable  to  misconstruction, 
and  that  it  may  contain  imperfections  of  date,  or  expression  which  bring 
into  doubt  its  genuineness.    In  the  case  now  considered,  all  these  causes 


38 

operated  against  a  strict  execution  of  the  order.  General  Jackson  could 
not  be  easily  convinced  that  it  was  the  intention  of  the  President,  after 
accepting  the  services  of  his  volunteers,  and  removing  them  six  hundred 
miles  from  their  homes  in  an  inclement  season,  pregnant  with  disease,  and 
beyond  a  vast  wilderness  filled  with  hostility,  to  deprive  them  of  food  to 
save  them  from  hunger^ — to  strip  them  of  tents  to  cover  them  from  the 
weather  and  of  arms  to  defend  them  from  savages.  Yet,  on  the  I5th 
March,  he  received  the  duplicate  of  an  order  addressed  to  him  at  New- 
Orleans,  requiring  him,  ''  on  its  receipt,  to  consider  his  corps  dismissed 
from  public  service,"  and  to  "  deliver  over  to  General  Wilkinson  all  arti- 
cles of  public  property  which  may  have  been  put  mto  its  possession" — 
not  leaving  the  men  a  mouthful  of  food — in  the  hands  of  the  detachment 
a  musket  or  cartridge — in  the  possession  of  the  corps  a  single  tent  or  wa- 
gon, or  the  smallest  accommodation  for  their  sick,  of  whom  there  were 
more  than  150.  He  received  another  copy  of  the  same  order,  which  was 
dated  nearly  a  month  earlier  (before  General  Armstrong,  whose  signature 
it  bore,  had  come  into  the  war  department,)  and  contained  variations  of 
expression  which  made  it  appear  not  to  be  an  exact  copy.  However 
he  determined  to  obey  it  with  as  much  exactness  and  as  little  delay  as 
possible.  He  saw,  what  Mr.  Johnson  does  not  perceive,  that  its  declara- 
tory part  effected  itself.  He  and  his  detachment  were  dismissed  the  ser- 
vice of  the  United  Slates.  The  order  was  not  a  direction  to  disband,  but 
a  notification  of  dismissal,  so  far  effected  itself,  and  required  in  no  degree 
the  agency  of  General  Jackson.  This  Mr.  Johnson  may  assure  himself 
of  by  conceiving  that  General  Jackson,  or  any  other  General,  were  di- 
rected to  consider  himself  and  his  corps  evgnsred  with  the  enemy,  and  re- 
flecting whether  that  would  be  deemed  an  order  for  attack.  Its  manda- 
tory clause  relating  to  public  property  and  admitting  of  some  exceptions, 
he  conceived  it  his  duty,  both  to  the  government  and  to  his  men,  not  to 
carry  into  full  execution.  Viewing  ours  as  a  just  and  paternal  govern- 
ment, he  considered  his  detachment  pretty  much  as  the  law  considers  a 
pre-termitted  child,  and  determined  to  do  that  for  his  men  which  the  go- 
vernment had,  it  appeared  forgotten  to  do.  In  a  letter  to  the  Governor  of 
Tennessee,  under  whose  authority  the  order  of  the  Secretary  had  repla- 
ced him,  he  says,  "  I  have,  however  from  the  necessity  of  the  case,  deter- 
mined to  keep  some  of  the  tents,  and  to  march  the  men  back  in  as  good 
order  as  possible,  and  I  will  make  every  sacrifice  to  add  to  their  comfort. 
I  have  required  of  the  contractor  here  twenty  days  rations,  which  will 
take  my  men  to  Colbert's ;  and  I  must  trust  in  Providence  and  your  exer- 
tions to  furnish  them  with  supplies  from  there  to  Nashville."  To  General 
Wilkinson  who  had  enclosed  the  order,  he  says,  "  I  have  had  the  honor  of 
receiving  your  letter  of  the  8th  inst.  with  its  enclosures,  containing  direc- 
tions for  me  to  deliver  over  public  property  to  you,  which  is  in  possession 
of  my  detachment.  The  order  will  be  complied  with,  except  a  small  re- 
seivation  of  tents  for  the  sick,  and  some  other  indispensible  articles.  I 
acknowledge  the  order  was  unexpected  ;  but  I  coincide  with  you  in  senti- 
ment that  those  who  are  bound  must  obey."  Let  the  reader  recollect  that 
the  law  under  which  the  services  of  this  corps  had  been  accepted, 
made  the  arms  and  accoutrements  of  the  soldier  his  private  property  at  his 
discharge — operating  like  a  bounty  on  enlistments — that  of  course  Gen. 
Jackson  had  no  right  to  apply  it  to  this  species  of  military  property,  and 
that  he  only  suspended  its  execution  so  far  as  to  retain  a  few  tents  and 
other  articles  indispensable  to  the  care  of  the  sick,  until  he  could  get  his 
corps  through  the  wilderness,  which  was  already  the  scene  of  those  Indian 
murders  that  soon  brought  on  the  Creek  War.  That  to  effect  this  patri- 
otic and  honorable  purpose  he  borrowed  5000  dollars  on  his  own  private 


39 

account* — and  that  the  government  itself  sanctioned  his  proceeding,  and 
then  determine  the  degree  of  credit  to  which  Mr.  Johnson's  charge  is  en- 
titled. Let  it  be  also  remembered  that  this  chivalric  corps  contained  the 
Cotfees  and  the  Carrols,  who  fought  wherever  they  could  find  a  foe,  and 
the  Lauderdales  and  the  Donelsons  who  fell  with  so  much  glory  and  that' 
had  Gen.  Jacksofi,  through  fear  of  "  indignity,"  disbanded  his  troops  and 
left  them  uncovered,  unfed,  undefended  victims  to  disease,  to  want  and  to 
murder,  the  patriots  of  Tennessee  would  have  been  justly  disgusted  with 
a  service,  which,  when  inspired  with  gratitude  and  affection  for  their  faith- 
ful leader,  they  adhered  to  with  such  signal  zeal  and  triumphant  efficiency. 
It  appears,  then,  that  so  far  from  deserving  censure  for  the  modified 
execution  of  the  order  m  question,  he  merits  the  praise  of  prudence  and 
generosity,  and  is  entitled  to  the  gratitude  of  his  country  for  that  season- 
able and  enlightened  independence  which  had  the  effect  of  attaching* to 
him  and  to  her  the  materials  of  future  safety  and  honor.  As  to  the  indig- 
nity offered  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  at  which  our  modern  Macsycophant 
is  so  bustling  and  booing,  it  is  probable  that  the  Secretary,  who  was  by  no 
means  dull  of  app.'-ehension.  did  not  perceive  it.  But  if  he  did,  he  could 
only  consider  it  a  private  injury,  as,  by  his  own  act.  General  Jackson  was 
no  longer  under  his  authority  ;  and  was,  therefore,  out  of  the  rule  of  obe- 
dience, upon  which  Mr.  Johnson  founds  the  right  to  command.  fJis  let- 
ter, after  representing  the  discrepancy  between  the  date  of  the  order,  (5th 
Jan.)  and  the  official  notification  of  Gen  Armstrong's  entrance  into  the 
War  Department,  (3d  Feb.)  assures  the  Secretary  of  his  determination 
"to  obey  the  order,  and  to  deliver  over  to  the  quarter  master  of  the  de- 
partment all  public  property  in  my  hands  that  can  be  spared  from  the  con- 
venience and  health  of  my  men,  on  their  return  to  Nashville  ;  it  being 
the  place  where  they  were  rendezvoused  by  the  orders  of  the  President 
of  the  United  States  ;  and  to  which  place  I  shall  march  them  as  soon  as 
the  necessary  supplies  can  be  had  for  the  purpose."  He  then  expatiates 
on  the  los.-s  of  public  spirit  and  of  patriotic  lives,  and  on  the  great  distress 
which  would  attend  the  immediate  dispersion  of  his  men — expresses  his 
conviction  that  their  arms  belonged  to  them,  and  his  surprise  that  an  order 
so  neglectful  of  their  feelings  and  interests,  should  have  been  traced  by  the 
hand  "of  an  old  revolutionary  soldier,  who  knows  the  privations  of  a  sol- 
dier's life  ;  who  exercisefl  his  talents,  (not  at  a  very  prudent  moment)  in 
their  behalf,  at  the  close  of  the  last  war."  Now  this,  so  far  from  offering 
an  inlignity,  really  conveyed  a  delicate  allusion  to  the  Newburg  letters. 
Gen  Armstrong  had  not  the  folly  to  consider  it  an  indignity,  and  Gen. 
Jackson  being  out  of  service,  not  the  right  to  consider  it  an  offence.  He 
was,  no  doubt,  gratified  at  his  prudence  in  not  putting  that  interpretation 
on  his  laconic  order,  which  might  have  been  a  natural  one  in  situations  so 
safe,  near  and  plentiful  as  Niagara  and  Norfolk,  but  which  would  have 
been  incalculably  distressing  to  the  Tennesseans  at  Natchez.  When  it 
is  taken  into  consideration  too,  that  the  tender  of  this  corps  had  been  ac- 
cepted in  August,  that  they  had  been  assembled  in  December,  had  em- 
barked on  the  Cumberland  in  January,  that  after  voyaging,  often  through 
floating  ice  and  stormy  weather,  more  than  1000  miles,  they  had  encamped 
near  Natchez  on  the  21st  February,  and  had  then  been  dismissed  without 
ceremony  or  accommodation  on  the  15th  March — the  reader  will  be  apt 
to  conclude  that  more  moderation  on  the  part  of  Jackson,  would  have  been 
mean  spirited,  would  have  betrayed  a  want  of  that  sensibility  to  the  claims 
of  friendship  and  neighborhood  and  fellowship,  which  he  so  heroically 
felt — which  did  him  so  much  honor  as  a  man,  and  were  so  fortunate  in  the 
event  to  his  country. 

*0f  a  merchant  of  Natchez. 


40 

The  winding  course  of  Mr.  Johnson's  defamation,  brings  next  into  view 
the  charsfe  of  disobedience  to  the  War  Department,  in  the  shape  of  "  a 
general  order  ;"  and  if  a  man  can  lose  reputation  by  making  unjust  at- 
tacks upon  the  fame  of  another,  it  will  tend  as  little  to  his  honor  as  those 
which  have  already  been  refuted.  The  circumstances  explaining  this 
case  are  the  following  : — while  Gen.  Jackson  was  in  the  service  of  the 
United  States,  it  occurred  several  times,  and  at  seasons  of  the  greatest 
pressure,  that  officers  to  whom  he  had  assigned  important  duties,  were 
silently  withdrawn  from  their  posts  by  orders  from  some  subaltern  in  the 
line,  stationed  as  a  deputy  in  the  adjutant  and  inspector  general's  office, 
at  Washington.  On  the  1st  of  October,  1814,  for  example,  just  a  fortnight 
after  the  first  attack  on  Fort  Bowyer,  and  while  the  whole  British  arma- 
ment was  hovering  between  Mobile  and  New  Orleans,*  an  order  was  is- 
sued from  the  War  Department,  signed  John  R.  Bell,  deputy  inspector 
general,  directing  Col.  Sparks,  and  the  officers  of  the  2d  regiment,  inclu- 
ding the  gallant  Major  Lawrence,  to  proceed  forthwith  on  the  recruiting 
service  !  This  order  was  received  whde  Gen.  Jackson  was  effecting  the 
timely  expulsion  of  the  British  from  Pensacola,  and  had  left  Mobile  in 
charge  of  Col.  Sparks,  and  Fort  Bowyer  in  that  of  Major  Lawrence. — 
With  commendable  prudence  these  officers  declined  obedience,  and  re- 
mained at  th'^ir  posts.  General  Jackson  complained  of  it  to  the  govern- 
ment, pointed  out  the  serious  consequences  that  might  have  been  produced 
by  it,  and  suggested  the  propriety  of  communicating  in  future,  all  orders 
to  his  subordinates  through  him,  inasmuch  as  his  capacity  to  defend  the 
extensive  and  defenceless  line  of  territory  committed  to  his  charge,  would 
be  destroyed,  if  the  officers  on  whose  vigilance  and  exertions  he  depended 
were  removed  from  their  stations  without  his  knowledge. 

This  representation  received  no  effectual  attention  from  the  government 
and  the  anomalous  practice  it  condemned,  continued  at  intervals  to  pre- 
vail. A  forcible  instance  occurred  in  the  person  of  Major  Long,  who 
having  reported  himself  under  a  regular  order  to  Gen.  Jackson  for  duty, 
was  directed  by  him  to  the  Upper  Mississippi  for  the  purpose  of  sketching 
the  topography  of  a  district  in  that  quarter,  upon  which  a  contest  with  the 
Indians  was  then  apprehended.  The  next  thing  the  General  heard  of  his 
•Engineer  was,  while  he  was  anxiously  expecting  his  leport,  through  a 
newspaper  notice  in  New-York,  that  the  Major  had  sometime  since  estab- 
lished himself  in  that  city,  in  obedience  to  an  order  from  the  War  De- 
partment. Gen.  Jackson  (4th  March,  1817)  again  appealed  to  Mr.  Mon- 
roe (then  President)  on  the  subject,  reiterated  his  former  reasons  against 
the  irregularity,  and  deprecated  with  much  earnestness  its  prevalence  in 
his  division  when  no  emergencies  of  war  existed  to  require  it,  and  when 
his  head  quarters  were  at  Nashville,  a  point  of  convenient  distribution  lor 
orders  directed  by  mail  to  the  various  military  stations  in  the  south  and 
west.  This  communication,  like  the  former,  proving  ineffectual,  deter- 
mined no  longer  to  have  more  responsibility  than  power,  he  took  measures 
to  bring  the  subject  before  the  government  in  a  way  that  would  admit  of 
no  further  neglect.  On  the  22d  April  he  issued  a  general  order  forbid- 
ding the  officers  of  his  division  to  obey  any  order  from  the  War  Depart- 
ment which  did  not  pass  through  the  office  of  his  Adjutant  General. — 
About  two  months  after  this,  the  President  still  declining  any  decision  on 
the  matter,  and  suffering  it  to  fester  by  delay,  an  order  was  issued  from 
the  War  Department  to  General  Ripley,  then  in  command  at  New  Or- 
leans, which,  in  compliance  with  Jackson's  general  order  he  did  not  obey. 
Finding  one  of  his  officers  involved  in  difficulty  by  an  act  of  military  sub- 

*  See  despatch  from  Mr.  Monroe  to  Gen.  J.  of  the  27th  Sept.  and  from  Gen.  J.  to  Mr.  M. 
«f  the  24th  and  37th  August. 


41 

ordination  and  fidelity,  Jackson  immediately  assumed  an  attitude  whicli 
none  but  a  Martinet  or  an  Attorney  can  fail  to  admire.  In  a  letter  to  the 
President,  (I'Mi  Aug.  1817)  he  referred  to  his  former  communications  on 
this  subject,  and  to  the  cases  which  had  produced  them — repeated  the 
substance  of  his  general  order,  and  stated  the  dillemma  of  General  Rip- 
ley, and  with  his  characteristic  spirit  and  honor  thus  relieved  him  from  all 
responsibility.  "  This  has  given  rise  to  the  proper  disobedience  of  Major 
Gen.  Ripley  to  the  order  of  the  Department  of  War  above  alluded  to,  for 
which  I  hold  myself  responsible."  He  adds — "In  the  view  I  took  of  this 
subject  on  the  4th  of  March,  I  had  flattered  myself  you  would  coincide, 
and  had  hoped  to  receive  your  answer  before  a  recurrence  of  a  similar 
infringmeut  of  mditary  rule  rendered  it  necessary  for  me  to  call  your  at- 
tention tfiereto.  None  are  infallible  in  their  opinions,  but  it  is  neverthe- 
less necessary  that  all  should  act  agreeable  to  their  convictions  of  right. 
My  convictions  in  favour  of  the  course  I  have  pursued  are  strong,  and 
should  it  become  necessary,  1  will  willingly  meet  a  fair  investigation  be- 
fore a  military  tribunal.  The  good  of  the  service,  and  the  dignity  of  the 
commission  I  hold,  alone  actuate  me.  My  wishes  for  retirement  have  al- 
ready been  made  known  to  you,  but  under  existing  circumstances,  my 
duty  to  the  officers  of  my  division  forbids  it,  until  this  subject  is  fairly  un- 
derstood." The  final  decision  when  it  came  was,  that  orders  to  inferiors 
should  pass  through  the  commanding  officer  of  the  division,  always  there- 
after, Mn/e55  in  case  o/*  necc55%.  Admitting  the  principle  contended  for 
by  Jackson,  and  terminating  a  practice,  which  under  the  aspect  of  legal 
authority,  was  subversive  of  discipline,  injurious  to  service,  and  repugnant 
to  justice.  It  is  true  that  by  the  Constitution  the  President  is  Comman- 
der in  Chief  of  the  army,  and  that  by  a  custom  almost  equivalent  to  law, 
the  orders  of  the  Secretary  are  considered  the  orders  of  the  President, 
and  that  among   the   illegitimate   descendants   of   this  custom,  was   the 

f>ractice  of  confiding  the  power  of  the  Department  to  Lieutenants  of  the 
ine,  whose  enormous  deviations  from  propriety,  as  in  the  order  to  Col. 
Sparks,  brought  it  into  question  and  disrepute.  But  the  President  is  Com- 
mander in  Chief,  only  in  the  same  sense  in  which  the  General  is  com- 
mander of  his  division,  has  no  stronger  claim  to  the  obedience  of  the 
General  than  the  latter  has  to  the  obedience  of  the  Colonel,  and  his  or- 
ders, whether  issued  under  his  sign  manual,  or  through  the  Secretary  of 
War,  or  the  imposing  instrumentality  of  a  subaltern,  are  to  be  restrained 
by  the  laws  of  Congress  and  the  principles  of  the  Constitution.  No  man 
will  contend  that  his  authority  in  the  army  is  absolute — that  he  can  of 
his  own  accord  inflict  capital  punishment  on  a  soldier — can  make  a  lieu- 
tenant command  a  captain,  a  colonel  a  general,  or  exact  duty  from  either 
without  allowing  him  his  proper  rank.  Now  the  essence  of  rank  consists 
in  the  superiority  of  command  which  it  confers,  and  any  order  of  the 
President,  making  an  inferior  disobey  the  orders  of  his  superior,  is  a  de- 
rogation of  the  rank  of  that  superior,  and  produces  a  disorder,  the  remo- 
val of  which  necessarily  exposes  to  disturbance  in  a  similar  and  equivalent 
degree,  the  authority  of  the  President  over  the  superior.  The  order  to 
Col.  Sparks  required  a  direct  and  violent  disobedience  to  Gen.  Jackson's 
command,  as  that  to  Major  Long  effected  it.  To  have  rendered  these  or- 
ders entirely  legal  and  expedient,  they  should  have  been  communicated 
through  the  commanding  General.  They  would  then  have  preserved  the 
just  equality  between  responsibility  and  power,  which  the  nature  of  dele- 
gated authority  requires.  And  instead  of  causing  one  act  of  obedience, 
and  one  of  disobedience,  they  would  have  produced  two  acts  of  perfect 
obedience,  through  agents  related  in  due  subordination  to  each  other. — 
The  course  pursued  by  the  government  moreover,  involved  the  signal  in- 
6 


42 

justice  of  tixing"  publicly  the  proportion  between  Gen.  Jackson's  power 
and  responsibility,  upon  which  proportion,  it  must  be  presumed,  he  con- 
sented to  assume  the  latter,  and  then  privaieh/,  and  without  his  knowledge 
reducing  the  former  below  that  proportion,  by  a  proceeding  much  in  the 
nature  of  an  expost  facto  law.  The  silence  and  hesitation  persevered  in 
respecting  his  remonstrances,  while  they  tended  to  produce  an  impression 
that  the  reasons  he  advanced  were  not  disapproved,  created  a  strong  de- 
mand for  the  decisive  measures  he  adopted,  and  the  fact  which  is  but  too 
apparent  that  the  irregularity  he  complained  of  was  calculated,  if  contin- 
ued, to  disappoint  the  department,  as  well  as  the  General,  as  it  might  be 
retorted  by  the  latter  in  various  perplexing  ways,  furnishes  another  strong 
objection  to  it.  Its  only  excuse  is  a  complete  justification  of  it,  where  it 
can  be  shewn,  and  a  marked  condemnation  of  it,  where  it  cannot  be 
shewn,  viz.  necessity.  To  this  fair  adjustment  and  full  redress,  Gen. 
Jackson  brought  this  abuse  in  the  service,  and  for  the  spirit  and  judgment 
he  displayed  on  that  occasion  alone,  he  deserves  the  gratitude  of  the  ar- 
my and  the  respect  of  his  fellow  citizens. 

Havmg  in  a  former  number  shewn  to  your  readers  that  his  military  ope- 
rations in  Floriiia,  were  in  direct  obedience  to  the  orders  of  the  War  De- 
partment, I  shall  not  be  detained  by  Mr.  Johnson's  repetition  of  that  un- 
founded charge  further  than  to  advert  to  the  clumsy  dexterity  with  which 
he  shifts  his  ground — at  one  moment  inveighing  against  the  General,  for 
disobedience  to  the  orders  of  the  Department,  and  at  the  next  reviling  him 
for  conduct  in  direct  obedience  to  them.  From  this  dilemma  he  cannot 
escape  unless  he  can  prove  that  the  orders  vesting  General  Jackson  "  with 
full  powers  to  conduct  the  war  in  the  manner  he  might  think  best  " — au- 
thorizmg  him  "  to  march  across  the  Florida  line  and  attack  the  Seminoles 
within  its  limits  " — and  requiring  him  to  collect  a  force  sufficient  "  to  beat 
the  enemy  and  terminate  the  conflict,"  did  not  justify  his  invasion  of  Flor- 
ida, within  the  limits  of  which  "  the  enemy  "  was  situated  ;  or  his  tempora- 
ry occupation  of  the  Spanish  Posts,  of  which,  in  defiance  of  the  stipulations 
of  a  treaty  and  the  duties  of  a  neutral,  the  Seminoles  held  either  hostile 
control  or  military  possessions.  A  disposition  to  avoid  labor  and  repeti- 
tion, suggests  the  propriety  of  a  similar  reference  for  a  refutation  of  the 
charges  grounded  upon  the  mis-called  declaration  of  martial  law — an  act 
of  vigor  and  forecast,  which  In  its  origin  and  consequences  was  vindi- 
cated by  urgent  necessity,  justified  by  powerful  analogies,  sanctioned  by 
examples,  and  ratified  by  events  ;  covering  that  city  with  glory  and  pro- 
tection, endearing  its  performer  to  all  who  were  willing  to  fight  in  its  de- 
fence, and  thrilling  every  patriotic  heart  in  this  Union  with  emotions  of 
joy  and  triumph.  ^ 

These  ofiences  against  the  law  and  the  Constitution  being  disposed  of, 
we  come  to  those  with  which  Mr.  Johnson  declares  "  mercy  and  humanity 
imite  in  accusing  General  Jackson."  They  stand  in  his  catalogue  in  the 
following  order; — "The  cold-blooded  massacre  at  the  Horse  Shoe" — 
"  the  decoyed  and  slaughtered  Indians  at  St.  Marks  " — "  the  wanton  and 
unexampled  execution  of  Ambrister  " — "  and  of  the  still  more  injured  Ar- 
buthnot,  a  trader  and  an  advocate  for  peace."  With  respect  to  "  the  cold 
blooded  massacre  at  the  Horse-Shoe,"  as  no  order  for  one  was  ever  given 
by  General  Jackson,  it  is  a  calumny  on  the  courage  and  humanity  of  his 
officers  and  men,  who  have  added  unfading  laurels  to  those  which  they 
gained  on  that  desperate  day — many  of  whom,  in  their  unrivalled  cam- 
paigns, found  honorable  wounds  or  glorious  death — and  some  of  whom 
have  filled  and  occupy  the  highest  stations  in  the  esteem  and  government 
of  a  grateful  country.  My  business  is  confined  to  the  correction  of  the 
more  intentional  injustice  of  the  address,  and  therefore,  after  assuring  thfi 


43 

reader  that  there  is  no  foundation  whatever  in  truth  or  in  history  for  sucli 
a  charge,  T  nhall  do  no  more  than  submit  this  inexcusable  misrepresenta- 
tion to  that  sort  of  destruction  which  the  testimony  of  a  witness  undergoes, 
when  it  is  proved,  that  in  order  to  establish  a  certain  point  of  interest,  he 
has  made  solemn  declarations,  which  had  no  foundation  in  fact,  and  could 
have  none  in  his  own  knowledge.  General  Carroll,  the  late  Governor  of 
Tennessee,  and  a  distinguished  disciple  of  General  Jackson  in  war,  v^'hose 
rank  and  presence  in  this  action,  gave  him  a  minute  acquaintance  with  its 
features,  upon  reading  Mr.  Johnson's  address,  furnished  the  following 
statement: — '*  I  have  seen  the  address  of  the  anti-Jackson  Convention  of 
Virginia,  in  which  General  Jackson  is  charged  with  the  cold  blooded 
massacre  of  the  Indians  at  the  Horse  Shoe.  During  the  whole  of  the 
Creek  war,  I  serve;^  as  Inspector  General  of  the  Army — was  present  at 
the  battle  of  the  Horse  Shoe,  and  can  say,  of  my  own  personal  knowledge, 
that  the  charge  is  wholly  destitute  of  foundation.  Tow  ards  the  close  of 
the  action,  after  the  breast-works  had  been  taken  by  assault,  a  number  of 
Indians  took  refuge  under  a  quantity  of  brush  and  logs.  General  Jackson 
advanced  within  a  short  distance  of  the  place  of  their  concealment,  and 
directed  his  interpreter,  George  Mayfield,  to  assure  them,  that  if  they 
would  surrender,  that  they  should  be  treated  with  the  greatest  humanity. 
They  answered  the  proposition  by  firing  upon  and  wounding  Mayfield 
severely  in  the  shoulder.  A  similar  proposition  was  also  made  Ity  Jim 
Fife.orold  Chinnebee,  and  the  fire  of  the  Indians  was  the  only  roply  it  re 
ceived.  After  a  number  of  our  men  were  killed  and  wounded  by  those 
Indians,  and  after  they  had  twdce  refused  to  surrender  upon  any  terms, 
the  brush  was  set  on  fire,  and  but  few  of  them  escaped  death.  The  pris- 
oners  taken  on  that  day,  including  a  large  number  of  women  and  children, 
were  humanely  treated  by  General  Jackson.  I  have  made  the  above 
statement  in  justice  to  General  Jackson,  and  the  brave  men  who  fought 
the  battle  of  the  Horse  Shoe."* 

The  testimony  of  numerous  eye  witnesses  might  be  added  to  this  state- 
ment, but  no  multiplication  of  certificates  could  render  it  more  respecta- 
ble, or  more  completely  effect  the  explosion  of  this  "  cold-blooded  "  slan- 
der. The  reader  must  be  struck  with  the  emphatic,  yet  forbearing  tone 
in  which  it  is  expressed,  proving  that  although  the  writer  was  sensible  of 
the  injustice  of  Mr.  Johnson's  reflection  on  himself,  he  was  not  at  all  mov- 
ed by  it. 

But  perhaps  it  is  intended  to  impress  the  public  mind  with  the  belief, 
that  dislodging  those  desperate  Indians  who  rejected  quarter  and  prolong- 
ed the  battle  after  resistance  was  vain,  was  of  itself  a  "  cold  blooded  mas- 
sacre." Are  then,  the  enemies  of  the  United  States,  when  waging  a  sav- 
age unsparing  war,  to  requite  with  w^ounds  and  death  our  offlers  of  human- 
ity and  protection,  and  yet  be  saved  from  death  or  retaliation  ?  Are  our 
commanders  to  begin  an  action — overpower  by  great  effort,  the  main  force 
of  the  enemy,  and  then  abandon  the  field  and  the  victory  to  a  few  despe- 
radoes ?  General  Jackson's  duty  to  his  country  and  his  government, 
compelled  him,  if  in  his  power,  to  defeat  the  enemy ;  and  that  operation  ne- 
cessarily involves  the  destruction  of  every  adversary  who  refuses  to  yield. 
Had  the  desperate  party  at  the  Horse  Shoe,  been  a  detachment  of  Bona- 
parte's Imperial  Guard,  the  veterans  of  fifty  pitched  battles,  and  command- 
ed by  Ney  or  Soult,  the^  must  have  suffered  the  fate  of  the  Indians — as  a 
garrison  which  refuses  a  summons,  may  by  the  laws  of  war,  be  blown  into 
the  air.    But  who  were  these  determined  and  deluded  savages?    The 

*  Ramsay's  History,  continued,  published  is  1818,  gives  an  account  similiar  to  this  of  Hen. 
©airoll's,  V.  3.  p.  162. 


44 

same  who,  when  the  sudden  hostility  of  their  nation  rose  like  an  inunda- 
tion on  the  settlenjents  of  Alabama,  herding-  hundreds  of  women  and  child- 
ren into  Fort  Mimms,  broke  into  that  asylum  with  treachery,  fire  and 
murder.  Who  followed  to  that  feast  of  butchery,  where  quarter  was  neith- 
er offered  nor  allowed,  the  volcanic  voice  of  Weatherford ;  and  as  it  rose 
above  the  shouts  of  fury  and  the  shrieks  of  despair,  breathinor  inextin- 
guishable rage  and  demanding  relentless  slaughter,  obeyed  its  ferocious 
summons  until  but  17  out  of  300  of  our  unarmed  citizens  were  teft  alive. 
They  were  the  same  men  who,  under  cover  of  a  truce  granted  for  their 
benefit  by  General  Jackson,  had  entrapped  and  slaughtered  the  son  of 
Chinnibee — the  Massanissa  of  the  Creeks — the  friend  and  the  ally  of  the 
American  people.  *  These  are  the  beings,  whose  self-provoked  destruc- 
tion, in  a  fair  and  hard-fought  action.f  the  people  of  Virginia  are  advised 
to  consider,  in  order  to  vilify  a  faithful  officer,  a  "  cold-blooded  massacre  !" 
The  charges  "  of  the  decoyed  and  slaughtered  Indians  at  St.  Marks," 
is  next  in  order  and  equal  in  truth.  Its  subject  is  indissolubly  connected 
with  the  crimes  and  fate  of  Arbuthnot  and  Ambrister,  and  blends  itself  in- 
timately with  the  operations  of  Jackson  in  Florida.  But  the  scene  of  these 
transactions  was  so  remote  and  obscure — covered  by  untravelled  wilder- 
nesses, unmeasured  swamps,  and  undefined  jurisdictions — the  characters 
upon  which  they  operated  so  notorious  and  yet  so  unknown,  their  allegiance 
so  diversified,  and  their  motives  so  various,  that  the  attention  even  of  a 
fair  inquirer  is  often  bedimmed  and  confounded  in  their  study,  as  the 
strongest  eye  is  mocked  in  pursuing  the  ever-changing  reflection  from 
agitated  water.  In  their  present  state  of  indigestion,  they  form  a  mass  of 
rubbish,  behind  which  every  scribbler  who  chooses  to  revile  Jackson  and 
hopes  to  delude  the  public,  entrenches  himself.  I  confess  it  was  with  as- 
tonishment, something  like  that  which  the  reader  of  Tom  Jones  experiences 
on  finding  the  philospher  Square  meditating  on  the  fitness  of  things  behind 
Molly  Seagrim's  blanket,  I  discovered  C.  Johnson  ensconced  within  it 
And  it  is  less  to  expose  him,  than  to  prevent  the  leader  of  any  future  con- 
venticlers,  who  may  put  their  heads  and  their  haunches  together  for  the  pur- 
pose of  hatching  public  misrepresentations,  that  I  invoke  the  patience  of  the 
reader's  attention  to  the  following  details. 

*  Chinnibee  was  the  Chief  of  the  Natchez  tribe.  A  few  days  before  the  battle  of  the  Horse 
Shoe,  a  party  of  the  hostile  Creeks  commu  nicated  to  him  their  wish  to  submit  to  General  Jack- 
son, and  join  the  friondly  Creeks.  For  this  purpose  Chinnibee  interceded,  and  pledged  him- 
self as  a  hostage  for  their  fidelity.  They  accordingly  came  into  his  fort,  where  they  were  re- 
ceived as  friends.  In  the  course  of  a  few  days,  they  mentioned  that  they  had  corn  and  some 
other  provisions  secreted  in  the  neighboring  hills,  and  asked  for  permission  and  assistance  to 
convey  it  to  the  fort.  L'hinnibee  furnished  them  his  horses,  and  sent  with  them  his  youngest 
son.  After  getting  about  fifteen  miles  from  the  fort  they  turned  upon  young  Chinnibee,  and 
murdered  him  with  the  indecency  and  cruelty  peculiar  to  savages— carried  off  the  horses- 
joined  the  hostile  Creeks,  and  were  engaged  in  the  battle.  To  the  honor  of  the  noble  father 
of  this  Tinfortunate  son,  it  must  be  added,  that  after  the  action  had  commenced,  (apt.  Gordon, 
who  commanded  the  spies  discovered,  just  as  the  order  for  storming  the  Indian  breast  work 
was  about  to  be  given,  that  the  women  and  childen  who  were  within  the  works,  might  be 
aaved  by  the  intervention  of  Chinnibee,  and  would  otherwise  be  destroyed  in  a  successful  as- 
sault. He  communicated  this  to  General  Jackson,  who  suspended  the  order,  although  his  men 
were  suffering  from  the  fiie  of  the  Indians,  both  those  prepared  to  make  the  assault,  and 
those  who  were  swimming  the  river  to  support  it,  and  desired  old  Chinnibee  to  endeavor  to 
get  the  women  and  children  to  a  place  of  safety.  Although  his  son  had  been  murdered  so 
cruelly,  with  a  humnnity  truly  christian,  this  old  man  mounted  the  breast  woik  at  the  haznrd 
of  his  life,  and  calling  to  the  women,  told  them  he  was  ready  to  save  them  and  their  children. 
They  hastened  towards  him,  he  sprang  into  the  fort,  and  the  poor  creatures  clinging  to  his 
hunting  shirt  and  clustering  around  him  like  a  swarm  of  bees,  were  brought  out  of  the  fort 
and  saved  from  destruction.  The  General  then  gave  the  order  to  storm,  the  works  were  car- 
riei',  the  enemy  destroyed,  and  the  victory  gained.  Does  this  look  like  a  cold-blooded  massa- 
cre ?    And  yet  fifty  witnesses  will  confirm  it  if  Mr.  Johnson  is  incredulous 

t  The  loss  of  the  Americans  in  this  action,  was  55  killed  and  146  wounded.  Ainong  the 
former  were  Major  Montgomery,  of  the  regular  army,  an  officer  of  great  promise,  and 
Lieutenants  Mouiton  and  Womerville.  Among  the  latter,  the  present  Generals  Carroll  and 
Houston,  the  late  and  the  present  Governor^of  Tennessee. 


45 

The  dramatis  personce  engaged  in  the  catastrophe  which  Jackson  is  ac- 
cused of  producing  were — Lieut.  Colonel  Nichols,  of  the  British  artillery 
— Woodbine  an  English  adventurer  of  fine  address  and  desperate  morals, 
trainer  of  hostile  Indians,  with  the  title  if  not  the  rank  of  Captain  *  and  in 
that  respect,  adjunct  and  successor  of  Nichols — Arbuthnot,  a  Scotchman, 
who  had  left  his  wife  in  Europe,  married  a  colored  one  in  the  ^^  est  Indies, 
and  with  a  son  by  the  former  one  taken  a  trading  position,  in  Florida,  got 
himself  elected  Chief  of  the  Indians  at  war  with  the  United  States,  and 
as  such  as  had  sanctioned  the  butchery  of  Lieut.Scott  and  h's  party — Am- 
brister,  a  half  officer  and  half  buccaneer,  who,  with  the  commission  of 
"  auxiliary  lieutenant  of  colonial  marines,"  given  by  Admiral  Cochrane  dur- 
ing the  war  with  his  country,  was  taken  three  years  after  the  peace,  leading 
the  Indians  and  fugitive  negroes  in  battle  against  the  troops  of  the  United 
States.  Hambly  and  Doyle,  subjects  of  Spain,  agents  of  a  commercial 
firm  in  Pensacola,  driving  the  Indian  trade  in  an  establishment  on 
the  Apilachicola,  and  favorers  of  peace — Cook,  clerk  to  Arbuthnot, 
also  in  fa^or  of  peace — Francis  or  Millis  Hadgo,  Chief  of  the  prophets 
of  the  Creek  Nation,  appointed  by  Tecurnseh  in  his  insurrectional  visit 
to  the  Southern  tribes  in  the  fall  of  1812,  an  inveterate  enemy  of  the 
United  States,  had  refused  to  unite  with  his  countrymen  in  the  capitulation 
of  Fort  Jackson,  abandoned  his  country  and  at  the  head  of  the  outlav/ed 
Redsticks,  had  taken  refuge  and  protection  with  the  Seminoles  in  Florida, 
instigated  them  to  rapine  and  murder,  and  witnessed  and  encouraged  the 
massacre  of  Lieutenant  Scott  and  his  party — Hemithlimaco,  a  Redstick 
Chief  the  principle  warrior  of  the  prophet,  and  principle  perpetrator  of 
that  massacre.f 

The  motives  and  liabilities  of  these  men  were  as  various  as  their  names 
and  nations.  The  motive  of  Nichols  was  success  in  his  profession  and  ser- 
vice to  his  country,  stained  with  the  desiirn  of  debasino-  the  chivalry  of 
w^ar,  by  the  employment  of  savage  associates.  To  this  Woodbine  added, 
and  in  a  predominating  degree,  the  infamous  desire  of  plundei  and  profit. 
Lucre  was  the  sole  object  of  Arbuthnot,  and  his  means  for  procuring  it, 
were  sagacious  and  unscrupulous — proposing  to  acquire  an  influeiice 
over  all  the  surrounding  Indian  tribes,  by  means  of  it  to  disturb  their  ex- 
isting relations  with  their  civilized  neighbors,  both  as  to  territory  and  trade, 
and  to  engross  the  entire  profits  of  the  latter.  A  mixed  and  unprincipled 
thirst  for  gain  and  for  fame,  seems  to  have  actuated  Ambrister.  Interest, 
which  incited  Arbuthnot  and  Ambrister  to  produce  confusion:  made  Ham- 
bly and  Doyle  anxious  to  preserve  peace.  Cook  was  engaged  to  be  mar- 
ried to  a  girl  in  New  Providence,  felt  therefore  an  inordinate  attachment 
to  life,  and  little  disposition  to  run  the  hazards  of  his  employer,  Arbuthnot. 
The  "  self  exiled"  Prophet,  loving  his  country  less  than  he  hated  her  ene- 
mies, was  filled  with  revenge  for  the  disasters  of  the  Creek  war,  for  the 
loss  of  influences  which  they  had  occasioned  him,  for  the  severities  which 
his  refusal  to  submit  to  the  capitulation^  of  Fort  Jackson  had  occasioned 

*  Latour,  page  37. 

t  The  Redsticks  were  a  powerful  tribe  of  the  Creek  Indians,  whose  national  standard  watj 
a  red  pole  decorated  with  human  scalps. 

"  Besmeared  with  blood, 

"  Of  human  sacrifice,  and  parent's  tears.'^ 
Their  possessions  once  reached  from  the  Alabama  to  the  Mississippi,  and  one  of  their  princi- 
ple villages  was  on  the  latter  river,  where  Baton  Rouge  (Red  Staff)    now  stands      'J  he  '*  out- 
lawed Redsticks"  were  that  portion  of  this  tribe  who,  refusing  to  abide  by  the  capitulation  of 
Fort  Jackson,  were  outlawed  by  the  Creeks. 

JThe  agreement  commonly  called  the  treaty  of  Fort  Jackson,  was  in  reality,  a  military  ca- 
pitulation, so  designated  and  prescrib«»d  by  the  government.  In  a  letter  from. the  \^'ar  depart- 
ment, of  the  20th  March,  1814,  first  addressed  to  Gen.  Pinckney  and  then  communicated  to 
€fen. Jackson,  it  is  said— "since  the  date  of  my  last  letter,  it  has  occurred  torae  thai  the  pro- 


46 

him  and  for  the  '•  examplary  punishment"  denounced  against  him  by  the 
order  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  {16th  Jan.  1818)  which  was  committed  for 
execution  to  Gen.  Jackson.  He  was  further  stimulated  by  the  pride  of 
character  which  a  late  visit  to  England,  and  a  flattering  reception  from  the 
Prince  Regent  had  inspired,  and  by  the  hope  of  reviving  the  hostile  spirit 
of  the  Creeks  and  regaining  his  former  influence  and  possessions.  With 
a  hatred  to  the  United  States  equally  passionate  and  fierce,  Himithlimaco 
was  infuriated  by  a  natural  thirst  of  carnage,  superstitions,  reverence  for 
the  prophetical  dignity  of  Francis,  and  habitual  eagerness  to  execute  his 
most  brutal  purposes. 

The  agency  of  these  individuals,  impelling,  moderating  or  counteract- 
ing each  other,  and  deriving  more  or  less  encouragement  and  aid  from  the 
Spanish  authorities,  had  kept  up  a  state  of  hesitating  war,  but  unremitting 
robbery  and  bloodshed  on  our  southern  frontier,  ever  since  the  termination 
of  the  Creek  war,  in  August  1814.  In  its  least  offensive  but  most  dan- 
gerous form,  it  was  repelled  by  General  Jackson,  when  he  dislodged  the 
British  armament  from  Pensacola,  in  November  of  that  year.  It  is  the  bu- 
siness of  History  to  record  how,  with  more  than  mother's  care,  a  patriot's 
fire,  and  a  statesman's  foresight,  on  the  first  intelligence  of  its  appear- 
ance there,  he  flew  unordered  to  the  protection  of  Mobile,  and  fortified 
and  garrisoned  Fort  Bowyer.  How,  while  he  awakened  by  despatches, 
the  vigilance  of  the  cabinet,  just  composed  after  the  capture  of  Washing- 
ton— he  roused  the  patriotism  of  the  people,  and  calling  on  Coffee  and  his 
volunteers  with  a  voice  in  which  they  heard  the  triumph  of  Fame,  he  for- 
ced the  British  to  abandon  Pensacola,  and  the  Spaniards  to  maintain  their 
neutrality.  How,  after  securing  the  left  flank  of  his  extensive  line  of  de- 
fence, penetrable  by  rivers,  and  accessable  by  bays,  he  passed  with  in- 
credible expedition,  to  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi,  with  little  other  aid 
from  the  government  than  stale  intelligence  and  diplomatic  diredions*  with 
arms,  flints  and  money,  collected  by  himself,  with  raw,  unfurnished  and  in- 
ferior forces,  he  vanquished  both  in  attack  and  defence,  the  most  formida- 
ble veterans  of  Europe,  and  surpassed  in  skill  and  courtesy,  her  renowned 
and  accomplished  Generals.  Since  the  peace  with  England  these  lawless 
disturbances  had  been  continued  by  forays  of  rapine  and  murder,  princi- 
pally on  the  southern  borders  of  Georgia,  which,  after  some  movements  of 
troops,  many  talks  with  the  Indians,  and  much  diplomacy  with  tSpain,  were 

posed  treaty  with  the  Creeks  should  take  a  form  altogether  military,  and  should  be  in  the  na« 
ture  of  a  capitulation.''''  Under  this  and  similar  orders,  the  capitulation  was  concluded.  And 
yet  Mr.  Clay,  in  his  spe  ech  (Jan.  18th,  1819,)  on  the  Seminole  war,  attachei  blame  to  Gen.  Jack- 
son for  "  the  dictorial  terms"  of  this  treaty^  as  he  calls  it.  So  that  then  as  now,  if  General 
Jackson  executed  the  orders  of  the  government  lie  was  censured,  and  if  he  only  appeared  to 
transcend  them,  abused. 

*The  first  intelligence  which  General  Jackson  received  from  tlie  government  of  the  pro- 
jected attack  on  New  Orleans,  was  in  a  letter  from  Mr.  Monroe,  (then  Secretary  of  war)  of 
the  7th  Sept,  1814.  But  as  early  aa  the  10th  Aug.  he  had  despatched  by  express  the  same  in- 
telligence in  a  coroborated  form  to  the  Department,  the  receipt  of  which,  and  of  four  other 
despatches  of  that  month,  are  acknowledged  by  Mr.  Munroe  on  the  27th  Sept.  In  the  letter 
of  the  7th,  General  Jackson  is  emphatically  told,  ''  you  should  repair  to  New-Orleans  as  soon 
as  your  arrangements  can  be  completed  in  the  other  parts  of  the  di^^trict,  unless  your  presence 
should  be  required  at  other  jmints.''''  In  a  letter  of  the  lO'h  December,  he  is  told  in  a  spirit 
quite  prophetical,  considering  he  had  no  efficient  supplies  from  the  Department,  that  by  ta- 
king a  suitable  position  in  the  vicinity  of  JVew  Orlearis,  he  will  be  enabled  "  to  overwhelm  the 
enemy  whenever  he  jyrfsents  himself,^'  and  this  without  the  Secretary's  having  any  definite 
knowledge  of  Jackson's  strength  or  giving  any  information  of  the  enemy's.  Rut  suppose  the 
enemy  had  got  possession  of  Mobile,  which  the  same  letter  describes  as  of  little  importance, 
"  comparatively  a  trifiing  object  with  the  British  government."  and  which  nothing  but  Jack- 
son's  bold  expulsion  of  them  from  Pensacola,  and  persevering  maintenance,  in  spite  of  the 
order  for  the  officers  of  the  2d  regiment  to  go  out  the  recruiting  service,  [of  a  garrison  at 
Fort  Bowyer,]  prevented — their  14,000  men  might  have  been  passed  up  the  'I  ombeckbee,  re- 
kindling the  Indian  war  all  the  way,  and  in  four  days  march  from  the  highest  navigation  of 
that  liver,  have  readied  the  Mississippi  at  the  Chickasaw  Bluffs,  cutting  off  New  Orleans 
from  supplies  and  support,  ensuring  both  to  themaelvea,  and  then  New  Orleans  must  have 
15Ulen  without  a  blow. 


47 

persevered  in  until  the  Fall  of  1817 — murder  and  military  execution  wem 
committed  on  our  unsuspecting  soldiers  and  helpless  women  and  children. 
Public  opinion  now  appealed  to  the  government,  and  the  government  to 
General  Jackson.  He  took  the  field,  and  with  that  unerring  aim  of  judg- 
ment and  courage,  which,  like  the  noble  instinct  of  the  mastiff,  springs 
right  at  the  heart,  he  penetrated  and  destroyed  the  sources  of  this  cruel 
and  infamous  war,  with  the  utmost  possible  expedition  and  the  least  practi- 
cable bloodshed.  Without  provisions,  and  with  a  force  of  only  10()0  raw 
militia  and  Indians,  to  whom  too,  he  was  a  stranger,  he  entered  Florida, 
built  Fort  Gadsden,  routed  the  Indians  at  Micasuky,  found  in  their  village 
near  300  old  scalps,  and  on  the  prophet's  red  pole,  50  fresh  ones,  most  of 
them  recognized  by  the  hair  to  have  belonged  to  the  unfortunate  party 
of  Lieut.  Scott.  Here  ascertaining  from  the  prisoners  that  a  part  of  the 
enemy  had  fled  to  St.  Marks,  and  also  ascertaining  the  criminal  complicity 
of  the  commandant,  he  formed  a  determination  to  prevent  any  further  abuse 
of  Spanish  neutrality  and  American  rights,  and  took  possession  of  that  for- 
tress— where  he  found  "  the  advocate  for  peace,"  Arbuthnot,  who  with 
the  innocent  and  vacant  look,  peculiar  to  his  countrymen,  when  they  medi- 
tate shrewd  and  dangerous  designs,*  sat  an  unconcerned  guest  at  the  table 
of  the  commandant.  From  St.  Marks,  discovering  that  the  remnant  of  the 
routed  Indians  and  negroes  had  retreated  down  the  west  coast  of  East  Flor- 
ida, in  the  direction  of  Woodbine's  grand  depot  of  Virginia  and  Georgia 
runaway  slaves,  he  pursued  and  overtook  them  near  the  Econfinnah  swamp, 
where  some  were  killed,  many  taken,  and  the  only  woman  who  escaped 
death  from  the  murderers  of  Lieut.  Scott,  recaptured.  The  enemy  re- 
treating to  the  Snawney  were  not  allowed  time  to  renew  their  strength  or 
courage,  but  were  again  attacked  and  routed  with  such  loss  and  dispersion, 
that  the  victors  hoped  tl^ey  had  finished  the  war. 

On  this  occasion  Ambrister  was  made  prisoner.  The  army  returned  to 
St.  Marks,  where  the  General  having  received  information  from  the  Gov- 
ernor of  Alabama,  that  a  large  body  of  hostile  Indians  who  had  been 
committing  fresh  murders  on  the  Alabama,  were  assembling  near  Pen- 
aacola,  and  were  there  freely  admitted  and  constantly  furnished  with 
means  of  subsistence  and  war,  he  determined  to  cut  oflTthis  last  head  of 
the  HydrsB — to  supply  any  defect  of  will  or  power  that  might  exist  on  the 
part  of  the  Governor  to  observe  his  neutrality,  and  to  occupy  that  place 
for  a  time  also.  Marching  by  the  Ocheesee  Bluffs,  he  was  confirmed  in  his 
intention  by  finding  the  navigation  of  the  Escambia  occluded  to  his  sup- 
plies. He  therefore  proceeded,  and  entering  Pensacola  on  the  24th  of 
May,  he  took  Fort  Barrancas  on  the  27th — having  in  his  short  campaign 
of  three  months,  and  with  and  undisciplined  force,  varying  from  one  to 
two  thousand,  overrun  a  country  larger  than  Italy — forced  a  Parthian  ene- 
my three  times  to  action,  and  though  once  inferior  in  numbers,  thrice  de- 
feated him  ;  without  any  materials  for  a  military  bridge,  having  passed 
rivers  as  large  and  as  deep  as  the  Po  or  the  Adige — without  other  subsis- 
tence frequently  than  acorns,  raw  hides  and  water,  having  marched  more 
than  800  miles  ;  with  scarce  any  artillery,  having  taken  by  force  or  in- 
timidation three  fortresses,  and  with  little  more  than  the  energies  of  his 
own  great  mind  terminated  forever  this  savage,  servile  and  piratical 
war.  It  was  a  subject  of  glory  to  Pompey  the  Great,  that  after 
having  worsted  Sertorions,  he  should  agree  to  conduct  the  war  a- 
gainst  the  Pirates.  When  General  Jackson  undertook  the  Seminole 
War,  he  had  defeated  the  best  troops,  and  among  the  finest  Generals 
of  Europe,  and  terminated  the  most  glorious  campaign  of  the  age.  Yet 
he  is  found  as  ardent  and  persevering  against  these  hordes  of  savages 

^aniu*  to  Lord  Mansfield.    Seott,  passim. 


48 

and  slaves,  as  sincerely  devoted  to  the  country  as  any  young  aspirant 
for  fame,  little  dreaming  that  in  the  bosom  of  that  country,  ingrati- 
tude was  to  hatch  a  brood  of  Vampires  !  During  these  operations,  it  hap- 
pened that  the  Prophet  Francis  and  his  instrument  Kenhagee,  king  of  the 
Mississukian.  in  whose  town  the  350  scalps  were  found,  had  after  the  mur- 
der of  Lieut,  Scott  and  his  party  seized  Hambly  and  Doyle,  at  the  instiga- 
tion of  Arbuthnot,  under  whose  authority  as  chief,  and  that  of  Francis 
they  were  tried  in  council  and  setitenced  to  be  tortured  to  death,  for  their 
friendship  to  the  United  States.  From  this  wretched  fate  they  were  res- 
cued by  the  spirited  interference  of  a  negro,  jYero,  the  commander  of  60 
other  negroes  in  the  service  of  the  hostile  Chief  Bowlegs,  and  were  by 
his  agency  conveyed,  as  prisoners  of  Arbuthnot,  and  his  Indians  to  St. 
Marks,  for  safe  keeping.  Here  they  were  received  by  the  commandant 
as  prisoners,  and  here  they  saw  numerous  evidences  of  the  participation 
of  the  Spanish  authorities  in  the  Seminole  war,  but  escaping  in  a  canoe, 
they  were  taken  up  by  Lieut,  M'Keever,  of  the  United  States'  Navy,  in  the 
adjacent  Bay.  With  a  sort  of  dramatic  coincidence,  it  came  lo  pass  that 
the  thirst  for  blood  having  risen  in  ihe  breast  of  the  prophet  and  his  war- 
rior Himithlimaco,  they  soon  repented  the  rescue  of  Hambly  and  Doyle, 
and  came  to  St.  Marks  in  quest  of  them,  just  after  they  had  made  their 
escape.  With  the  ferocious  perseverance  of  wolves  they  pursued  their 
flight  along  the  coast,  hoping  that  weather  or  weariness  would  force  them 
ashore,  and  soon  descried  a  vessel  at  anchor,  with  British  colours  flying  at 
the  mast  head. —  After  some  reconnoitering  they  went  aboard,  were  con- 
ducted into  the  cabin  where  they  found  ilambly  and  Doyle,  who  immedi- 
ately indentifyiHg  them  as  the  murderers  of  Lieut.  Scott  and  his  party, 
and  their  own  captors  and  tormentors,  they  were  put  in  irons  by  Lieut. 
M'Keever.  These  circumstances  being  all  made  known  to  Gen.  Jackson, 
by  a  mass  of  proof  and  undisputed  notoriety,  in  conformity  with  the  order 
of  the  Secretary  of  War  "to  inflict  exemplary  punishment  on  the  authors 
of  the  atrocities" — committed  on  Lieut.  Scott's  party,  and  Mrs.  Garrett's 
family,  he  had  them  hung,  in  accordance  with  the  principles  of  the  law  of 
Nations,  and  in  obedience  to  the  dictates  of  humanity,  which  their  atroci- 
ties had  outraged,  anfl  to  which  the  terror  and  example  of  their  fate  was 
a  just  sacrifice,  and  proved  a  salutary  propitiation. 

The  reader  will  see  that  tiie  only  decoying  was  practiced  by  Lt.  M'Kee- 
ver, and  before  he  can  agree  to  censure  that,  it  must  be  shewn  that  our 
naval  officers  had  no  right  to  use  such  stratagems  as  the  officers  of  other 
nations  practice,  although  the  colours  of  all  nations  are  furnished  them  for 
this  express  purpose ;  and  it  must  be  farther  shown  that  it  was  the  duty 
of  Gen.  Jackson  to  see  that  Lt.  M'Keever  should  dress  and  manage  his 
ship  exactly  to  the  taste  of  Mr.  Johnson.  These  Indians  were  taken  by 
stratagem  and  surprise  as  Andre  was,  and  like  that  unfortunate  officer, 
whenever  violated  a  feeling  of  humanity,  they  were  "slaughtered" — that 
is,  they  were  hung.  In  this  punishment,  as  justice,  humanity,  and  the 
law  of  nations  were  satisfied,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  they  being  out  of 
the  United  States,  our  own  laws  were  not  concerned.  Had  they  been 
brought  within  our  limits  all  their  crimes  must  have  gone  unpunished — 
for  they  had  not  violated  our  municipal,  or  maritime,  or  martial  laws. — 
But  the  law  of  nations  vests  the  right  of  retaliation  in  the  commanding 
general,  and  the  imbecility  or  dishonour  of  the  Spanish  authorities  having 
justified  the  assertion  of  our  beligerent  rights,  it  was  the  duty  of  Gen. 
Jackson  to  fulfil  the  instructions  of  his  government  and  bring  these  mur- 
derers to  punishment.* 

♦Although  the  feeling  and  common  sense  of  every  man  must  convince  him  that  the  death 
of  the  prophet  and  Himithlimaco  was  due  to  humanity  and  justice,  yet  it  may  be  proper  to 


49 

Let  us  now  come  to  the  case  of  Arbuthnot      From  the  recaptured 
American  woman,  who  was  the  sole  remaining  survivor  of  Lieutenant 
Scott's  party — from  Cook  his  Clerk — from  Phenix  his  acquaintance — from 
letters  andf apers  found  in  a  vessel  of  his,  captured  m  the  moutn  of  the 
Snawney,  and  others  obtained  from  the  Indians  by  our  agent,  it  was  prov- 
ed incontestibly  that    "  this  advocate  for  peace,"    by  misrepresenting  the 
terms  of  the  Treaty  of  Ghent — the  conduct  of  the  American,  and  tne  in- 
tentions of  the  British  government,  had  incited,  in   time  of  peace,  the 
Seminole  Indians  to  hostilities  against  the  United  States.     That  to   aid 
those  hostilities,  he  had  applied  in  behalf  of  the  Indians,  to  various  func- 
tionaries  of  Britain  for  supplies,  and  to   disguise  them  for  protection. — 
That  he  had  furnished  them  with  intelligence  and  ammunition  for  military 
purposes,  and  had  given  them  advice  and  orders  in  the  managepient  of  the 
war.    That  he  had  directed  the  seizure  and  presided  at  the  condemnation 
of  Hambly  and    Doyle  in  conseq  ence  of  their  being  "the  advocates  for 
peace"  with  the  United  States.     That  he  had  instigated  and  countenanced 
the  massacre  of  i^t.  Scott  and  his  party,  consisting  of  about  40  American 
citizens.     That  as  an  Indian  Chief,  he  had  permitted  our  gallant  officers 
to  be  assassinated,  our  brave  soldiers  to  be  butchered,  and  their  helpless 
wives  to  be  murdered,  or  with  more  horrible  cruelty  spared  to  see  their 
infants  "  taken  by  the  heels  and  their  brains  dashed  out  against  the  sides 
of  the  boat."*     And  that   when  one  of  the  two  women  who  had  been 
spared  (the  wife  of  an  American  serjeant)was  from  pregnancy  no  longer 
able  to  keep  up  with  the  march  of  her  captors,  this  "advocate  for  peace" 
ordered  her  to  be  put  to  death,  and  that  accordingly  she  was  bayoneted 
through  the  womb  !     From  the  same  and  other  sources  of  proof  it  was 
demonstrated  that  x\mbrister  had  not  only  instigated  the  Indians  to  war, 
against  the  United  States,  but  had  actually  joined  them  with  a  party  of 
runaway  negroes  and  led  them  in  battle — having  used  his  commission  as  a 
British  officer  (a  nation  with  which  we  were  at  peace)  to  promote  his  per- 
nicious influence  among  them,  and  having  endeavoured  by  force  to  convert 
a  Spanish  fortress  into  a  place  of  savage  hostility  against  the  United 
States. 

These  are  the  men  whose  crimes  had  destroyed  so  many  innocent  lives, 
for  the  sake  of  Otter  skins  and  runaway  slaves,  and  whose  punishment 
is  lamented  with  such  dignified  sorrow  by  Mr.  Johnson,  for  the  sake  of 
Messrs.  Adams  and  Clay.  The  evidence  against  them  satisfied  a  court  of 
gallant  and  intelligent  officers  of  their  guilt — satisfied  the  representatives 
and  the  government  of  the  nation — and  convinced  the  Courts  of  Spain 
and  of  England  of  the  justice  of  their  punishment.  And  yet  because  it  is 
too  voluminous  and  intricate  to  be  readily  examined,!  Mr.  Johnson  found 

fortify  that  well  founded  decision  by  respectable  authority.  Vattel  says  (520,  34)  "When  we 
are  at  war  with  a  natioa  which  observes  no  rules  and  grants  no  quarter,  they  may  be  chastised 
in  the  persons  of  those  of  them  who  may  be  taken.  They  are  of  the  number  of  the  guilty, 
and  by  this  rigjr  the  attempt  may  be  made  of  bringing  them  to  a  sense  of  the  laws  of  human- 
ity." The  prophet  and  Himithlimaco  were  not  only  "among  the  guilty,"  but  the  leaders  of 
the  guilty. 

*  Vide  in  the  documents  hereafter  specified,  Cook's  letter,  and  the  account  obtained  from 
the  recaptured  woman.  ^: 

t  For  the  evidence  in  these  cases,  see  documents  (35)^ccompanying  the  President's  mes- 
sage of  the  2d  December,  1818,  and  those  (65)  accompanying  that  of  the  OSth  Dec.  following, 
panicuiarly  tlje  letter  from  Gen.  Gaines  of  the  2d  December,  1817,  with  its  enclosures  that 
from  Gen.  Jackson,  of  the  8th  April,  18 18,  and  the  report  of  Col.  Butler  of  the  3d  May,  in  the 
first  set.  In  the  second,  Vos.  45,  46  and  6i,  with  the  deposition  of  Lieut.  M'Keever  and  the 
testimony  of  Phenix  and  Cook  before  the  Court  are  chiefly  apposite.  In  addition  to  the  au- 
thority already  produced  for  their  execution,  and  in  illustration  of  the  principle  that  must 
have  satisfied  the  foreign  governments  on  the  subject  ;  the  following  reference  is  made  to 
Vattel,  (52  o.  29.)  "  VVe  may  refuse  to  spare  the  life  of  an  enemy  who  has  surrendered, 
when  the  enemy  has  been  guilty  (a  fortiori  when  he  himself  has)  of  some  enormous  breach 

7  ■  .  ^ 


50 

upon  it  imputations  which  with  the  rancourous,  have  the  retributive  pro- 
perty of  injustice,  and  though  aimed  at  the  reputation  of  another,  will 
only  affect  his  own.  There  is  one  thing  that  ought  to  be  mentioned  as 
remarkable  both  in  his  ire  and  his  grief — namely,  his  solemn  affirmation 
that  Arbuthnot  who  was  hung,  was  "more  injured"  than  Ambrister,  who 
was  only  shot — bemg  convinced,  as  if  from  experience,  that  death  by 
hanging,  is  worse  than  death  by  shooting. 

When  a  writer  has  clearly  established  his  title  to  disbelief,  it  cannot  be 
necessary  to  oppose  a  formal  refutation  to  each  of  his  misstatements,  es- 
pecially if,  as  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Johnson,  his  errors  have  been  exposed 
before.  It  appears  that  in  the  list  of  unfounded  charges  contained  in  the 
address,  are  two  which  had  escaped  my  notice.  They  relate  to  the  six 
militia  men,  and  to  the  alledged  usurpation  of  power  to  appoint  militia- 
officers.  The  first  of  these  charges  is  now  before  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, and  as  its  determination  by  that  body  will  not  only  have  the 
authority  of  truth  but  of  the  nation,  I  shall  not  enter  on  the  easy  task  of 
refuting  it.  The  second  was  long  ago  demolished  by  the  memorial  of 
Gen.  Jackson  which  was  presented  to  the  Senate  on  the  6th  of  March, 
1820,  and  which  convinced  Mr.  Jefferson  of  his  "salutary  energy"  in  the 
prosecution  of  the  Seminole  War.  It  will  be  enough  to  refer  the  reader 
to  that  document,  and  particularly  to  the  deposition  of  Col.  Hayne  and  to 
the  letter  of  Cols.  Dyer  and  Williamson,  in  its  appendix  for  proof  that  the 
charge  is  absolutely  and  totally  false.  Would  it  were  in  my  power  to 
convince  him  that  Mr.  Johnson  does  not  know  it  to  be  so. 

Having  thus  completed  the  exposure  of  this  laboured  attempt  to  degrade 
a  great  citizen  and  delude  a  great  state,  it  remains  to  look  at  the  charac- 
ter and  condition  of  the  body  of  which  it  purports  to  be  the  offspring. 
In  individual  character  it  is  enviable,  in  numbers  respectable,  but  in  popu- 
lar influence  and  constitution,  meagre  and  scant.  Like  a  dying  peach 
tree,  it  has  all  leaves  and  no  fruit.  It  appears  to  be  more  numerous  than 
the  House  of  Delegates,  the  broadest  representation  known  in  the  state, 
and  yet,  consisting  as  it  does  of  detached  and  discontented  politicians,  its 
constituents  would  hardly  form  a  brigade  of  militia — and  they  would  be 
all  against  any  thing  military.  It  is,  in  truth,  a  "most  forcible  feeble," — 
and  the  address  is  the  most  enterprising  experiment  on  record  for  pro- 
pelling falsehood  by  the  force  of  authority.  Of  this  experiment,  it  is  but 
justice  to  say,  Mr.  Johnson  appears  to  be  the  organ,  the  manager,  the  Mix. 
But  now  that  his  torpid /orperfo  has  exploded,  what  will  he  do  with  his 
corps  of  engineering  judges,  misguided  by  him  into  the  defiles  of  dilem- 
ma and  discredit  ?  Will  he  disband  them  in  the  wilderness  of  fallacy 
and  falsehood,  far  from  their  sitting,  and  as  it  would  seem  their  superior 
parts,  bruising  their  delicate  shins  or  bumping  their  tender  rotundities 
against  the  stubborn  obstructions  of  fact,  and  the  bold  projections  of  ar- 
gument, stragglin;ar  and  scrambling  to  make  their  way  back  to  privacy 
and  privilege  without  steam-boats  and  without  mileage.*    In  opposition  to 

of  the  laws  of  nations,  and  particularly  when  he  has  violated  the  laws  of  war."  Arbuthnot 
and  Ambrister  had  violated  the  laws  of  peace  and  war,  of  God  and  man — and  to  have  treated 
them  like  ordinary  prisoners  of  w<^  would  have  been  encouragement.  "Vattel  (321)  says, 
"retaliation  may  be  exercised  even  on  the  innocent,"  a  principle  on  which  Gen.  Washington 
acted  in  the  case  of  bir  Charles  Asgill,  (Marshall  3d,  391.)  and  that  "when  your  army  is  out 
of  your  own  territory  the  right  of  retaliation  is  in  the  Commanding  General,  and  he  has  the 
right  of  sacrificing  the  lives  of  the  enemy  to  his  own  safety  or  that  of  his  people,  if  he  has 
to  contend  with  an  inhuman  enemy,  and  to  treat  him  as  his  own  people  have  been  treated. — 
See  also  the  details  in  the  House  of  Lords,  11th  May,  1819. 

*  Some  few  years  ago,  a  brace  of  these  administration  judges  took  a  farcy  to  travel  in 
steam-boats.  One  of  them  embarked  high  up  on  the  1  ctomac,  ard  having  coasted  an  immense 
peninsula,  landed  in  Richmond.    The  other  took  water  on  seme  of  the  Western  rivers,  and 


51 

orders  from  Washington,  he  can  never  dare  to  "divulge  their  draggletail- 
ed  show"  in  a  regular  retreat,  as  that  might  "  offer  an  indignity  to  the 
Secretary  of  War,"  and  produce  his  own  dismission  from  service.  The 
chaplain  of  the  expedition  too,  the  "oUy  man  of  God,"  what  will  become 
of  his  reverence  ?  But  this  is  a  subject  too  serious  for  ridicule,  too  awful 
even  for  pleasantry.  The  God  of  Moses  from  Sinai's  fiery  top  has  said, 
"thou  shalt  not  bare  false  witness  against  thy  neighbour,"  and  the  Re- 
deemer of  Mankind,  the  Lord  of  meekness  and  compassion,  denounces 
punishment  on  "evil  speaking,"  and  says  for  every  malicious  word  a  man 
shall  utter,  "he  shall  give  an  account  at  the  day  of  judgment !"  For  that 
account  let  the  reverend  gentleman  prepare. 

In  respect  to  Mr.  Johnson  it  can  hardly  be  said  that  modesty  or  elo- 
quence is  pre-eminent  among  his  political  virtues,  or  that  his  professional 
ability  is  likely  to  be  deci  eased  by  infusions  of  talent  into  his  general  wri- 
tings.   Of  him  ii  will  never  be  said — 

"  How  sweet  an  Ovid  was  in  Murray  lost." 

Acknowledging  in  his  letter  of  adhesion,  strong  distrust  and  disapproba- 
tion of  Mr.  Adams,  he  yet  insists  that  it  is  "ineffably  stupid"  in  the  peo- 
ple of  Virginia,  the  most  alert  and  spiritual  devotees  of  liberty  in  the  civ- 
ilized world,  not  to  postpone  their  decided  favourite  to  the  object  of  his 
public  die-esteem.  Nor  is  he  entitled  to  the  praise  of  invention  ;  for,  after 
labouring  lustily  in  the  field  of  fiction,  he  furnishes  his  party  with  nothing 
original.  While  all  his  charges  are  false,  not  one  of  them  is  new ;  and 
though  all  his  inferences  are  fallacious,  most  of  them  are  trite.  An  in- 
delicate memory  furnishes  his  premises,  and  an  immoderate  presumption 
regulates  his  conclusions.  Insensible  to  the  grandeur  of  the  character 
he  traduces,  he  seems  forgetful  of  the  intelligence  of  the  people  to  whom 
he  appeals.  But  it  is  strange  that  an  individual  so  inconsiderate  of  others 
should  not  have  more  respect  for  himself  He  does  not  appear  to  consid- 
er that  by  repeating,  he  adopts  these  stones — partakes  of  the  disgraceful 
motion  of  the  scandal,  and  marked  as  "the  tenth  transmitter"  of  false- 
hood, descends  with  th^  progress  of  an  impenitent  sinner,  who  sinks  in 
infamy  as  he  advances  m  age. 

If  these  remarks  should  appear  intolerant,  it  must  be  remembered  that 
the  re-action  of  injustice  is  proportioned  to  its  violence  ;  and  if  long,  that 
for  the  poison  of  concentrated  slander,  the  most  effectual  antidote  is 
expanded  truth. 

JEFFERSON. 

made  his  way  to  the  Treasury  either  by  Wheeling  or  New  Orleans.     In  imitation  of  (^ 
Adams  they  charged  constructive  viilease,    when  their  legal  milrage  was  en  thegdiri 
ordinary  route.    The  charge  of  one  was  tnrice  the  amount  of  his  just  claim,  that  of  th^' 
about  five  times.    The  legislature  made  them  disgorge,  although  Air.  t  lay  had  sane! 
the  doctrme,  in  allowances,  when  Speaker,  to  his  western  friends.    '.  he  matter  occasion! 
some  anger  and  much  fun  in  Virginia,  all  at  the  expense  of  the  steam-boat  judges. 


V' 


Mti^ii^is^-: ,_ 


V.4 


lie.  BERKELEV LIBRARIES 


